windows use the file menu to begin (new windowor change (open source fileuse the text edit window' run menu to run the code in that window (run moduleyour file first if you've changed it since it was opened or last saved and forgot to save your changes-- common mistake when you're knee-deep in coding when run this waythe output of your script and any error messages it may generate show up back in the main interactive window (the python shell windowin figure - for examplethe three lines after the "restartline near the middle of the window reflect an execution of our script py file opened in separate edit window the "restartmessage tells us that the user-code process was restarted to run the edited script and serves to separate script output (it does not appear if idle is started without user-code subprocess--more on this mode in momentidle usability features like most guisthe best way to learn idle may be to test-drive it for yourselfbut some key usage points seem to be less than obvious for exampleif you want to repeat prior commands in idle' main interactive windowyou can use the alt- key combination to scroll backward through the command historyand alt- to scroll forward (on some macstry ctrl- and ctrl- insteadyour prior commands will be recalled and displayedand may be edited and rerun how you run programs