OpenEuphoria

Re: More simple UI questions

• Posted by Mike777 <anon4321 at gmai?.c?m> Jan 09, 2008
• 707 views

CChris wrote:
> 
> Mike777 wrote:
> > 
> > I have a window with a number of textboxes and some groups.  When tabbing
> > through
> > the controls, when I hit tab while positioned at the "bottom" of one group
> > it
> > doesn't go directly to the first control of the next group.  Instead, it
> > seems
> > to go to the group itself, which doesn't show any visible signs of being
> > "selected"
> > so the user experience is that the text cursor has disappeared.  Hitting
> > another
> > tab puts the text cursor in the first control of the next group.
> > 
> > I have confirmed that the IDE has been set so that the order is correct
> > (there
> > are no controls, enabled or otherwise, listed between the example controls
> > of
> > the last paragraph).
> > 
> > If anybody has any ideas what I can check for, I would appreciate it.
> > 
> > Thanks
> > 
> > Mike
> 
> The expected behaviour of tabbing is to cycle through all elements of a group,
> once the group has been entered. You have to do something else to change from
> a group to another. Since there is no general concept of what the "next group"
> is, there is no standard keyboard shortcut to go there - it makes sense for
> nested groups, but not for unnested ones -..
> 
> As for what happens on reaching the last element of a group, I don't observe
> the effect you mention in he grouptabs.exw demo. Did you run it and have the
> same experience?

I find the behaviour in that program, grouptab.ewx, to be the opposite of what I
want. It has four groups and 4 standalone controls.  Of the four groups, three
are at the same level as the 4 standalone controls and the first of those groups
has a nested group.

The behaviour on my machine is that each group acts something like Hotel
California.  You can never leave (using the tab key).  That is, the tab key
cycles you through the group itself and once you are in that group, you are stuck
there.  It uses the arrow keys (down, up) to cycle through groups.  That is not
intuitive at all (to me).

What I really want is to ignore the groups entirely.  I just want the group
indicators to function as visual grouping cues for the end user, not in any way
affect the UI experience.

I just tried ensuring that all groups have no child controls.  That is, ensuring
that all the controls have their parent set as the window, not the group.  No
change.

So the question is how to simulate a group without actually having one.  

Thanks

Mike