Okay, here are *some* of the conventions, which seem to differ not just
by OS, but by application:
- Windows, Outlook 2007: Tab always moves between major areas of the
screen, as does Ctrl-Tab UNTIL you get into the message area, then
Ctrl-Tab moves among the parts of the message circularly (i.e., it gets
you into a loop). This is in reading mode. While editing a message,
Tab or Ctrl-Tab always inserts a tab character (and moves to the next
tabstop). This seems weird to me.... I can't find any option to change
it
- Windows, Ultraedit: Tab moves to next tabstop while editing, Ctrl-Tab
shifts among open files. Tab in a dialog moves among fields, and
Ctrl-Tab still shifts between open files (even with a modal dialog
open!)
- Windows, Firefox: Ctrl-Tab moves among the open tabs, Tab navigates
around the current HTML page fields. The only option I can see is under
"Accessibility" where you can choose to "Always use the cursor keys to
navigate within pages". Within dialogs, Tab moves among fields,
Ctrl-Tab shifts among tab pages in the dialog.
- Windows, Visual Studio 2008: Tab in dialogs moves among fields,
Ctrl-Tab moves among functional areas of the dialog (tab pages). While
editing a source file, Tab always inserts a tab, Ctrl-Tab moves among
the open documents (tab pages). I don't see any option to change this.
I haven't been able to find (yet) any dialogs that have multi-line text
areas where Tab would be useful for editing. Still looking...
So, one (fairly) reasonable approach, that would be workable, I think,
would be to have a single property on TextArea that says essentially:
"Tab does insert instead of move off field". Then Ctrl-Tab always moves
out of TextArea to next field and Tab could do either that or insert
depending on this property. And maybe the Ctrl-Tab could be something
else (automatically) on OSX (not sure what).
Roger Whitcomb | Architect, Engineering | [email protected] |
Ingres | 500 Arguello Street | Suite 200 | Redwood City | CA | 94063 |
USA +1 650-587-5596 | fax: +1 650-587-5550
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Brown [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 1:31 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Displaying tabs in TextArea
Anyone know how this is typically handled by the various OSes? In other
words, what does Windows/OS X/Linux do in this case? We can certainly
make it configurable, but if there is already a standard convention we
can apply, that would be easier.
G
On Nov 16, 2010, at 4:26 PM, Roger L. Whitcomb wrote:
> Personally, I use tabs a lot, and am frustrated in the few places that
I
> can't use it when writing text to (for instance) indent the first line
> of a paragraph. This would come into play with Pivot if TextArea were
> used (as an example) to compose an email message, to write comments in
> an online customer database, etc.
>
> I have seen other apps that have a configurable setting that allows
> Ctrl-Tab (or equivalent) to either do the insert / tabstop operation
and
> Tab move between fields or the reverse: to have Tab do the insert and
> Ctrl-Tab do the field move. I'm not sure how to do this kind of
> configuration thing with Pivot, other than to have a property or style
> specify it.
>
> Roger Whitcomb | Architect, Engineering | [email protected] |
> Ingres | 500 Arguello Street | Suite 200 | Redwood City | CA | 94063 |
> USA +1 650-587-5596 | fax: +1 650-587-5550
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Brown [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 1:17 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Displaying tabs in TextArea
>
> After thinking about this a bit more, I wonder if maybe the existing
> behavior might be preferable. In all other components, pressing Tab
> transfers focus to the next component. If we convert Tab key presses
to
> spaces, we'll have to come up with some other way to transfer focus
out
> of a TextArea.
>
> How important is Tab key support? I personally never use tabs myself
> unless I'm editing code, but TextArea isn't really designed for that
> purpose. What do others think?
>
>
> On Nov 8, 2010, at 5:13 PM, Jeremy Heiler wrote:
>
>> Thanks Greg.
>>
>> If you get around to it, could you send me the diff? I would really
>> like to see where the change was made.
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 7:42 AM, Greg Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Good question. TextArea doesn't currently support tab stops. It's
> kind of a pain and didn't seem worth the effort.
>>>
>>> However, as you noted, the Tab key is currently ignored, which may
be
> confusing to users. It would be fairly easy to insert some number of
> spaces when the Tab key is pressed (I almost always configure my text
> editor to do this). I'll prototype it and see how it turns out.
>>>
>>> G
>>>
>>> On Nov 6, 2010, at 11:32 PM, Jeremy Heiler wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi everyone, my name is Jeremy, and I am developing a text editor
> with
>>>> Pivot. I have set up a basic application that loads a file into a
>>>> TextArea, and so far working with Pivot has been very nice.
>>>>
>>>> My first question is, how can I display tabs in a TextArea? it
seems
>>>> like they're either ignored or are simply not visual. I am also
>>>> looking how to insert tabs, but I assume that has to do with
messing
>>>> with the listener for focusing. I haven't looked too much into that
>>>> yet, but any hints would be appreciated!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> //Jeremy
>>>
>>>
>
