There’s a lot of decisions you need to make when writing code, so the last thing you want to worry about is which text editor or IDE to use. Thonny keeps things simple. The Python IDE is sleek, straightforward, and built for newcomers and intermediate developers.

Thonny’s built-in debugger requires a simple press of just CTRL + F5 and will walk you through your code, showing you how Python expressions work, one piece of code at a time. Any potential syntactical errors are highlighted clearly and Thonny even helps with code completion, explaining references and guides users through how to install third party packages. It's perfect for getting started with the language, learning by doing, and correcting mistakes as you go along.

The latest version of Thonny is here and added a few new features. Let’s take a closer look at the open source IDE.

Welcome Thonny v4.0

The biggest breaking change that Thonny 4.0 adds is support for Python 3.10. This means that support for the previous Python versions of 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7 have been dropped. Additionally, Python 3 back-end has been renamed to "Local Python 3".

Some highlights from the 4.0 release include:

• Added automatic code completion option under Tools => Options => Editor
• New code analysis options and improvements
• Added “call tips”, which will help describe formal parameters for a current method call. “call tips” can be used both manually and automatically.
• More support has been added for uPythons
• CircuitPython with micro:bit
• Enhancements and fixes for MicroPython
• Activating a virtual m machine can now be done via Files view
• Translations added for Tamil and Thai
• Improved icon visuals
• Various bug and issue fixes

View the full changelog on GitHub here for a complete list of all new additions, bug fixes, distribution changes, support upgrades, as well as information on how to install it on Windows, macOS, and Linux devices.

That’s not all. An additional update followed with version 4.1, which pushed out some bug fixes that weren’t addressed in the 4.0 release, as well as added an update for the Estonian, German, and Chinese translations.

A great choice for learning Python

For Python newcomers, Thonny is a great way to get started. The text editor comes bundled with Python version 3.10 already installed, so it’s a perfect all-in-one package that has everything you need out of the box to start programming. There’s no need to waste time getting set up or downloading additional packages, just run Thonny and say Hello, World!

For intermediate programmers, Thonny still has plenty to offer. There’s a toggle to switch the IDE’s interface to “Expert Mode”, which will make more functionalities available. So, when developers are ready, they can take off the proverbial training wheels.

View the official website for more information, a video demo, and links to all available Thonny plug-ins that extend its capabilities even further. For even more info, refer to the wiki.