Eric (software)

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Python development environment

title: "Eric (software)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["code-navigation-tools", "cross-platform-free-software", "debuggers", "free-html-editors", "free-integrated-development-environments", "free-integrated-development-environments-for-python", "free-software-programmed-in-python", "linux-integrated-development-environments", "linux-programming-tools", "macos-programming-tools", "programming-tools-for-windows", "software-programmed-in-python", "software-that-uses-qt", "software-that-uses-scintilla", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license"] description: "Python development environment" topic_path: "technology/web" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_(software)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Python development environment ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	eric
logo	Eric Logo.png
logo size	200px
logo alt	The logo of eric
screenshot	Screenshot Eric 4.png
screenshot size	300px
screenshot alt	Screenshot of eric4 running in KDE SC 4
caption	eric4 running in KDE SC 4
author	Detlev Offenbach
developer	Detlev Offenbach
released
latest release version
latest release date
latest preview date
programming language	Python
operating system	Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows
platform	Python, Qt, PyQt
language	English, German, French, Russian, Czech, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Chinese
language count
genre	Integrated Development Environment
license	GPL version 3 or later
website
::

eric is a free integrated development environment (IDE) used for computer programming. Since it is a full featured IDE, it provides by default all necessary tools needed for the writing of code and for the professional management of a software project.

eric is written in the programming language Python and its primary use is for developing software written in Python. It is usable for development of any combination of Python 3 or Python 2, Qt 5 or Qt 4 and PyQt 5 or PyQt 4 projects, on Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows platforms.

Characteristics

eric is written in Python and uses the PyQt Python bindings for the Qt GUI toolkit. By design, eric acts as a front end for several programs, for example the QScintilla editor widget.

Features

The key features of eric 6 are:

Source code editing:
- Unlimited number of editors
- Configurable window layout
- Configurable syntax highlighting
- Sourcecode autocompletion
- Sourcecode calltips
- Sourcecode folding
- Brace matching
- Error highlighting
- Advanced search functionality including project wide search and replace
- Integrated class browser
- Integrated profiling and code coverage support
GUI designing:
- Integration of Qt Designer, a Graphical user interface builder for the creation of Qt-based Graphical user interfaces
Debugging, checking, testing and documenting:
- Integrated graphical python debugger which supports both interactive probing while suspended and auto breaking on exceptions as well as debugging multi-threaded and multiprocessing applications
- Integrated automatic code checkers (syntax, errors and style, PEP-8) for static program analysis as well as support of Pylint via plug-in
- Integrated source code documentation system
- Integrated unit testing support by having the option to run python code with command-line parameters
- Integrated interface to the enchant spell checking library
- Application diagrams
Version control:
- Integrated version control support for Mercurial and Subversion repositories (as core plug-ins) and git (as optional plug-in)
Project management and collaboration:
- Advanced project management facilities
- Integrated task management with a self-updating To-do list
- Integrated cooperation functions (chat, shared editor)
Other:
- Integrated web browser
- Integrated support for Django (as optional plug-in)
- Running external applications from within the IDE
- Interactive Python shell including syntax highlighting and autocompletion
- Integrated CORBA support based on omniORB
- Integrated rope refactoring tool (as optional plug-in)
- Integrated interface to cx_freeze (as optional plug-in)
- Many integrated wizards for regex and Qt dialogs (as core plug-ins)
- Tools for previewing Qt forms and translations

Support for Python 2 and 3

Prior to the release of eric version 5.5.0, eric version 4 and eric version 5 coexisted and were maintained simultaneously, while eric 4 was the variant for writing software in Python version 2 and eric version 5 was the variant for writing software in Python version 3.

With the release of eric version 5.5.0 both variants had been merged into one, so that all versions as of eric version 5.5.0 support writing software in Python 2 as well as in Python 3, making the separate development lanes of eric version 4 and 5 obsolete. Those two separate development lanes are no longer maintained, and the last versions prior to merging them both to 5.5.0 were versions 4.5.25 and 5.4.7.

Gallery

Releases

Versioning scheme

Until 2016, eric used a software versioning scheme with a three-sequence identifier, e.g. 5.0.1. The first sequence represents the major version number which is increased when there are significant jumps in functionality, the second sequence represents the minor number, which is incremented when only some features or significant fixes have been added, and the third sequence is the revision number, which is incremented when minor bugs are fixed or minor features have been added.

From late 2016, the version numbers show the year and month of release, e.g. 16.11 for November 2016.

Release strategy

eric follows the development philosophy of Release early, release often, following loosely a time-based release schedule. Currently a revision version is released around the first weekend of every month, a minor version is released annually, in most cases approximately between December and February.

Version history

The following table shows the version history of eric, starting from version 4.0.0. Only major (e.g. 6.0.0) and minor (e.g. 6.1.0) releases are listed; revision releases (e.g. 6.0.1) are omitted.

::data[format=table]

Branch	Version	Release date
4		2007-06-03
	2008-02-03
	2008-08-09
	2009-02-08
	2010-01-09
	2012-02-04
5		2010-07-04
	2011-02-27
	2012-02-18
	2013-02-03
	2014-01-07
	2014-10-27
6		2014-12-28
	2015-12-05
16		2016-11-12
	2016-12-03
17		2017-01-01
	2017-02-04
	2017-03-03
	2017-04-07
	2017-05-06
	2017-06-03
	2017-07-02
	2017-08-03
	2017-09-01
	2017-10-07
	2017-11-03
	2017-12-02
18		2018-01-06
	2018-02-03
	2018-03-04
	2018-04-02
	2018-05-01
	2018-06-02
	2018-07-07
	2018-08-02
	2018-09-02
	2018-10-03
	2018-11-01
	2018-12-01
19		2019-01-10
	2019-02-02
	2019-03-02
	2019-04-06
	2019-05-04
	2019-06-02
	2019-07-07
	2019-08-03
	2019-09-07
	2019-10-03
	2019-11-01
	2019-12-07
20		2020-01-01
	2020-02-02
::

Name

Several allusions are made to the British comedy group Monty Python, which the Python programming language is named after. Eric alludes to Eric Idle, a member of the group, as does IDLE, the standard python IDE shipped with most distributions.

Criticism

The Eric Python IDE does not feature an integrated toolchain for now.

References

(August 30, 2016). "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python: Best Practices for Development". O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Charney, Reg. (August 30, 2004). "Programming Tools: Eric3". Linux Journal.
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org eric-ide.python-projects.org:] Features
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2007.html eric news 2007]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2010.html eric news 2010]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2012.html eric news 2012]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2013.html eric news 2013]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2014.html eric news 2014]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2015.html eric news 2015]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news-2016.html eric news 2016]
[https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/eric-news.html eric news 2018]
Bidwell, Jonni. (April 14, 2018). "Best IDE for Python in 2018". TechRadar.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::