autoHilite and focus (following Jacque's solution) SOLVED, THANKS

[Slava Paperno]

I love this list for the education I get as much as for the practical
advice.

After hearing everything that has been said in this thread (mostly by
Jacque, but also by others), here is the solution that works.

To recap briefly, the problem is what Jacque calls "the engine's
long-standing behavior that  automatically focuses on the first object that
has traversalOn set to true whenever the card changes." In my case, I wanted
a field called "SearchTarget" to receive the focus after the user clicks the
Find button, so the user could type another target for the search. I tried
using [focus on field "SearchTarget"] at the end of the mouseUp script of
the Find button, and it did not work: the focus always ended up on the card.
Here is what does work:

====

This handler is in the field's script:

on focusOnMe
  select after char -1 of me
end focusOnMe

This is the last line in the script of the Find button:

send "focusOnMe" to field "SearchTarget" in 100 milliseconds

====

Thanks, everybody!

Slava

> -----Original Message-----
> From: use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com [mailto:use-livecode-
> bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of J. Landman Gay
> Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 12:52 PM
> To: How to use LiveCode
> Subject: Re: autoHilite and focus (following Jacque's solution)
> 
> On 7/6/11 2:06 AM, Slava Paperno wrote:
> > But then I added other buttons to the same card, and found that if any
> > of them has AutoHilite set to true, my focus command is undone, and
> > the focus moves to the card itself as soon as the mouseUp handler is
> > done in the Find button. I do want the user to see the visual feedback
> > from those buttons, and I don't want their Focus with Keyboard property
set to
> true.
> 
> I think what you're seeing is the engine's long-standing behavior that
> automatically focuses on the first object that has traversalOn set to true
> whenever the card changes. On Windows/Linux, it can be a button. On OS X,
> where buttons by default don't respond the same way, it's a field.
> This has been known to drive developers gibbering into the streets, and I
wish
> there were a way to turn that off.
> 
> But since we're stuck with it, one solution is to make your Find field the
first one
> (the lowest layer) if possible. Or, see my suggestion in my other post. Or
add an
> (ugly) command to an openCard handler that sends a message in 1
millisecond
> to another handler, which in turn focuses on nothing (or on your field if
you
> prefer.)
> 
> >
> > With the focus gone, my user will probably try to press Tab to return
> > the focus to the input field. But when the focus is on the card, none
> > of my buttons receives that Tab keypress.
> 
> Put the tabkey handler into the stack or card and check "the target" to
see which
> object received the message.
> 
> --
> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
> 
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