>On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, Jacqueline Landman Gay wrote:
>
>> Scott Rossi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> > Is there anyway to prevent the text field portion of a combobox button
>> > from automatically hiliting when its parent stack becomes active?
>>
>> I have had to override this behavior on two applications. MetaCard
>> automatically selects the first unlocked field it finds whenever the
>> card opens. It is almost never the behavior I want (not very Mac-like,)
>> and I wish it were optional. Scott, can we get a property setting for
>> this so we can turn it off?
>
>I don't know what alternate reality you people are living in but it's
>*STANDARD BEHAVIOR* for the first item in a dialog to get the keyboard
>focus and show a selection when the dialog opens on *ALL PLATFORMS*.
>The only counter examples I could find are in HyperCard and SuperCard,
>but maybe having been warped by one of those realities is the
>explanation for this penchant for violating the style guides.
You are right about dialogs but not all list fields are dialogs. Most of
the ones I use are not. Imagine a list of options but without a default
one. In this case you don't want the focus to mean selecting a line, maybe
a hilite of the rectangle of the field.
>
>If there's a flaw in MetaCard's behavior, it's that it doesn't
>automatically select the whole contents of the field when it gets the
>focus (though you can of course script this).
>
>> The only solution I've found is to create a transparent dummy field that
>> is one pixel wide and give it a lower layer number than any other
>> editable object. If possible, hide it under an opaque button or field,
>> but keep its locktext set to false. When the card opens, the dummy field
>> will be the default selected object and your other fields and buttons
>> will remain untouched. If I don't have a suitable object to cover the
>> dummy field (sometimes the blinking cursor shows through the cover field
>> anyway,) I line up the single-pixel wide field with the edge of a button
>> or graphic, so it doesn't show. You can't just hide the dummy field, you
>> have to keep it visible since the default selection won't go to a hidden
>>field.
>>
>> Both my apps start up with a list field for which I want no default
>> selection. Actually, in one app, one of the options for the user is to
>> proceed without selecting anything. Seeing an item in a list selected
>> for no reason is confusing. Is this a Unix convention? Windows? Could
>> the Mac version just not do it? It isn't very hard to have a script
>> select a line in a field if that's what you want.
>
>You might try try opening the Mac file selection dialog someday and
>take a good look at it. Then realize that we should probably make it
>*more* difficult to do what you're asking, not less.
I think switching the discussion from comboboxes which rightfully select
the default item, to list fields which assume a default line on their own
got things mixed up here.
> Regards,
> Scott
>
>> --
>> Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
>> 612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax
>>
>
>********************************************************
>Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com
>MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...
Regards, Andu
