List Field Not receiving Mouse messages unless a line is clicked?

Kay C Lan lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com
Wed Apr 27 04:51:17 EDT 2016


On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 1:34 AM, Sannyasin Brahmanathaswami <brahma at hindu
.org> wrote:

> I think the default behavior should be that if you click on white space in
> the field, lines are unhilited.
>
> This is very intuitive for any user/use case, because hilites occur when
> the object you mouse on is under the mouse. So having the hilite go away
> when click on white space makes “natural sense”
>

Does it?

Open the LC script editor for any object that has handlers and click in the
blank space below the list of handlers in the left hand column.

Open LC's Preferences and click the blank space below the list of
Preference Categories in the left hand column.

I believe you are on Mac: Open System Preferences:

Network and click below the list of Network ports in the left hand column.

Printer & Scanners and click below the list of Printers and Scanners in the
left hand column.

As you propose to make the default behaviour of a list field to unhilite
the line when you click the blank area, what should happen in the above
cases?

I believe you use BBEdit. It has a preference where you can open multiple
documents in a single window and they are listed down the left hand side (I
have 22 open at the moment) with the current document you are editing
hilited. If you click below the list of documents then the hilite is
removed, as you propose, but the document you are editing in the right hand
field remains visible. You can continue to edit the document and the List
Field on the left does not rehilite to confirm which document you are
editing. This is BAD BAD BAD!

I can't see why you'd want the left list field of handlers in the LC Script
Editor to behave like this.

So the questions then becomes, if the List Field default behaviour is
changed to what you suggest, how then do you script to cover the very many
cases like the LC Script Editor, System Preferences Network etc where you
want to display the current selection and list all valid options but NOT
allow for no selection?

Whilst you "can’t imagine any possible backwards compatibility issues" I
can only imagine a host of very unwanted issues and side effects. I use a
LOT of list fields where 'no selection' is not an option.

Now I'm not saying that I can't see a case for 'no selection', I most
certainly can, the Mac Finder a perfect example, it just seems to be that
you in either case you have to write your script to suit. The List Field is
what it is, it's been that way since birth, you script one way to get one
behaviour, you have to script another way if your needs are different.

I see no advantage in changing it because you'll still end up needed to
script differently for different situations.



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