An interactive python mode for blender would be great.

I often start the python interpreter while testing a script to check a code stub without executing the entire thing. There is no direct way to do this in blender. Adding a 'terminal' window mode to blender seems like the obvious solution, but perhaps there is something more elegant.

Besides allowing testing of scripts this creates a command-line-interface for blender that would handle repetitive but single use actions like...

Code:

for bone in skeleton:   if bone.x > 0:     bone.name = 'r'+bone.name   else:     bone.name = 'l'+bone.name

I usually use a dummy script to do that kind of things, but yes, a command line window could be very useful.

Martin
_________________
Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon

This code snippet creates a simple Python shell to the Blender console. It handles neither multi-line statements nor exceptions, but creating a fully compatible shell is not a problem. Anyway, I don't know if this solves your problem.

Code:

while 1:     try:         try:             s = raw_input('>>> ')         except EOFError:             print             break         if s and s[0] != '#':             s = s + '\n'             c = compile(s, '<stdin>', 'single')             exec c     except:         raise

- Joonas

To get a console window in MacOS X you must call Blender from the command line. Something like:
/Applications/BlenderPublisher.app/Contents/MacOS/blenderpublisher
You could also create a link to the executable and name it "blender" for easy access. Say:
ln /Application/...publisher ~/blender.
I also edited the script:

Code:

import traceback while 1:   try:     try:       s = raw_input('>>> ')     except EOFError:       print traceback.print_exc()       break     if s == 'exit':       break     if s and s[0] != '#':       s = s + '\n'       exec compile(s, '<stdin>', 'single')   except:     print traceback.print_exc()

It would be elegant if there was a toggle button on the script window that executed a script after it was selected in the drop-down menu. This would make selecting GUI scripts (or this console hack) like selecting a window mode. I think it would be consistent with the rest of the interface.[/code]