Popup Menus with Text Selection?

[Richard Gaskin]

Frank D. Engel, Jr. wrote:
> On Oct 12, 2004, at 1:41 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> 
>>
>> I came in late on this thread:  what was the reason for turning off 
>> traversalOn?  Maybe there's another way to handle that which won't 
>> cripple your Win version if you're making one.
> 
> 
> Leaving traversalOn on causes text in a field to be deselected when the 
> menu is opened.  The whole purpose of the menu is to apply 
> font/size/style settings to the selected text.  Since the text is 
> deselected, there is no longer a selection to apply a font/size/style to 
> by the time the user selects a font/size/style to apply.
> 
> Also, the program is a graphical report editor; if users are blind, then 
> they will not be able to use the program anyway.

Tabbing between controls is not just for blind people.  While the blind 
have no alternative, most proficient Win users are in the habit of doing 
that as a convenience (it minimizes the mouse-to-keyboard and 
keyboard-to-mouse time, which can be especially useful for apps that are 
heavy in text input).  Mac OS will eventually catch up in this regard. 
Steps have already been taking in this direction (see the "Turn on full 
keyboard access" option in the Keyboard & Mouse control panel in Panther).

As far as traversalOn affecting text selection, this does prevent a good 
many useful application designs and should be flagged as a bug.  I 
thought it had been.  Anyone have the Bugzilla number?

The interim workaround is to trap mouseEnter in the menu control to 
store the selectedChunk, and restore it in the menuPick handler.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
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  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com