Wing IDE Quick Start Guide

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This is a minimalist guide for those wanting to get started with Wing IDE as quickly as possible. For a more in-depth introduction, try the Tutorial.

Also available: Quick start guides specifically for OS X installation, Zope, Plone, Turbogears, Django, wxPython, PyGTK PyQt, Debugging Web CGIs, mod_python, PyGame, and many others

We welcome feedback and bug reports, both of which can be submitted directly from Wing IDE using the Submit Feedback and Submit Bug Report items in the Help menu, or by emailing us at support at wingware.com.

Install Python and Wing IDE

Both Python and Wing IDE must be installed. The Wing IDE executable is called wing4.1. See Installing, Running the IDE, and Installing your License for details.

Set up a Project

Wing starts up initially with a blank Default Project. To get the most out of Wing, you must set up your project as follows:

  • Use Add Directory and other items in the Project menu to add source files to the project.
  • Use Project Properties in the Project menu to specify Python Path and in some cases select the specific version of Python for use with your project. These two steps tell Wing how to resolve imports in your code, so it can discover and analyze your source base. This powers Wing's source browser, auto-completer, source assistant, and code navigation features. It is also used for the debugger.
  • Save your project to disk.

Note: Depending on the size of the code base you have added to your project, Wing may consume considerable CPU time for up to several minutes analyzing your source code. Once this is done, Wing should run with a snappy and responsive interface even on slower machines. If not, please let us know.

See Debug Properties and Source Code Analysis for details.

Key Features

You are now ready to start coding and debugging. Most of Wing's features are readily evident from the user interface. The Wing Tips tool provides useful usage hints.

These are the features you should be sure to try while evaluating Wing IDE:

  • Configurable Key Bindings -- Wing can emulate Visual Studio, VI/Vim, Emacs, and Brief key bindings, selected with the editor Personality preference.
  • Configurable Tab Key -- Wing maps the tab key to Indent To Match by default for Python and Increase Indent for other files. This can be changed from the Tab Key Action preference.
  • Auto-completion and Source Assistant -- Wing's editor and the Source Assistant tool provide context-appropriate completion options and documentation as you edit your code. The auto-completer uses Tab by default for completion, but this can be changed in the Completion Keys preference
  • Customizable User Interface -- Many options are available from Preferences, and you can split tools panels and move around the tools within them. Right click on the notebook tabs for options, or use the Windows menu to create tools in separate windows. Your configuration is remembered in your project.
  • Goto-definition -- Available from the toolbar, Source menu, and by right-clicking on symbols in the editor.
  • Source Index -- Quick access to other parts of a source file from the menus at the top of the source editor.
  • Mini-search -- Wing's powerful keyboard-driven search and replace facility is available from the Edit menu. Using the keyboard equivalents given in the menu, bring up the search entry area at the bottom of the screen, type in a search string, then repeat the key bindings for repeated search forward/backward.
  • Search Managers -- Provide single and multi-file, wild card, and regular expression search and replace. Available as Search and Search in Files in the tools area.
  • Source Browser -- Module or class oriented display of the structure of your source code. Show both the Source Browser and Source Assistant for detailed information about selected symbols.
  • Python Shell -- This Python command prompt lets you try out code in a sandbox process kept isolated from Wing IDE and your debug process.
  • Basic Debugging -- Set a breakpoint and start debugging. You can use the Stack Data tools to inspect or change program data. Wing distinguishes between fatal and non-fatal exceptions at the time they are raised, allowing you to inspect live program state more often. Debug process I/O is shown in the integrated I/O tool (or optionally in an external console).
  • Conditional breakpoints -- A powerful tool in isolating complex bugs by stopping before they occur.
  • Debug Probe -- This tool provides an interactive Python prompt that executes code in the current stack frame of a paused debug process. The Debug Probe is particularly useful in isolating and understanding complex bugs, and designing code that fixes the problem.
  • Watching Values -- Enter expressions to watch in the Watch tool, or right-click on any of the data views to track value over time by symbolic name or object reference.
  • Other Tools -- Templating / code snippets, bookmarks, macros, unit testing tool, and many other powerful features are available from Wing's menus.

Related Documents

Wing IDE provides many other options and tools. For more information:

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