#82 Weird Typing Formatting Stuff

[Danny Weltman]

Haven't really figured out what is going on since it's very weird and it would take a lot of time. But, look at the following text from an Argument record:

People might have desires for certain things, but they might have more fundamental desires for other (conflicting) things, because the former desire is a desire for something that is a means to the thing that is the subject of the more fundmanetal desire. So what it means to value something is to desire something for its own sake, not just to desire something (or desire to desire something) at all (Dorsey 2021, 118)

There are three ways to read this: 
1. You value X if you desire the state in which you desire (for its own sake) X
2. You value X if you desire, for its own sake, the state in which you desire X
3. You value X if you desire, for the sake of X, the state in which you desire X

Option 1 does not work as a response to Dorsey's objections, because if you wanted the marriage for its own sake that would make things better for you, but still we shouldn't say you value the marriage. In the architect case, you don't want to be an architect for its own sake (or as an instrument for someone else) but you do want to be an architect (Dorsey 2021, 118)

Option 2 doesn't explain why you value being an architect, and also it's too strict to say that in order to value something, you have to desire for its own sake the state in which you desire the thing. It's uncommon for us to desire something for its own sake (Dorsey 2021, 118-9)

Option 3 cannot accommodate the fact that you actively disvalue your marriage, since you don't desire to desire to leave the marriage, and it cannot explain why you value being a great architect, since you don't have a second order desire to desire being a great architect (Dorsey 2021, 118-9)

Importantly, the 1., 2., and 3. up there are (in Hypernomicon) created via the number list thing, not manually typed in. (They don't come along when I copy and paste so I added them into this comment.

When I am editing the argument record, if I select the text from the blank line right above "There are three ways" down through the numbered list (and going on as low as you want), and then hit the "cctrl" button on my keyboard, at least three things happen:

1. The numbered list changes from 1, 2, 3 to 1, 1, 1.
2. A new line is created between each entry on the numbered list
3. Hitting the "ctrl" key deselects one character at the end of the selection. Continuing to hit ctrl continues to deselect more characters.

Like I said, I haven't really tested this much since it's too weird and I don't really care. But surely some bug is involved.

[Jason Winning]

In my experimentation, this happens anytime the first selected line is blank, and the selection contains at least 2 list items.

This is a bug alright, a bug in the JavaFX HTMLEditor, not a bug specific to Hypernomicon.

The class javafx.scene.web.HTMLEditorSkin has an event handler for key press events, which begins as follows:

    webView.addEventHandler(KeyEvent.KEY_PRESSED, event -> {
        applyTextFormatting();

The first thing it does when there is a key press is to "apply text formatting". That means it is taking what is entered in that first dropdown on the left, which usually has "Paragraph" selected, and applying that formatting to the selected text. Actually, JavaFX tells the browser itself (which the HTMLEditor control is a wrapper for, and which is based on WebKit) to apply the formatting in that dropdown to the selected text. Unfortunately, the command to set the formatting does not appear to play very well with lists (probably because lists don't make sense in a heading, so it is unlikely you would be changing something to/from a heading format if it contains a list). I don't know if that is a bug specific to JavaFX or one that applies more generally to WebKit, but on the JavaFX side they could at least refrain from applying text formatting if the key press is a function key or a non-printing key combination (e.g., ctrl-home), in which case it makes no sense to be fiddling with formatting. So it is definitely a mistake for HTMLEditor to be unconditionally applying the formatting before doing anything else.

To fix (more accurately, work around) this on the Hypernomicon side, I will have Hypernomicon intercept function keys and prevent the HTMLEditor event handler from ever running in those cases,. It will also intercept "C" and Insert, if Ctrl/Cmd is down, and in those cases Hypernomicon will programmatically do the copy-to-clipboard command rather than letting HTMLEditor do it. That is going to be a hacky workaround, not a 100% fix; the phenomenon may still happen with certain other function keys or shortcuts that don't overwrite the text.

This is another instance of the fact that the HTMLEditor in general is buggy and not well maintained. The JavaFX development team (broadly so-called as to include Gluon) acknowledges this and has responded by creating a new Rich Text control for people to use instead. In other posts I have stated that in the future I may decide to reimplement the main text editor using something other than the JavaFX HTMLEditor; the new rich text editing capabilities being added to JavaFX are one possibility but that is going to have pros and cons, and it will take some research.

[Jason Winning]

I'll be posting a fix for this (will be in next release) that basically makes it ignore non-printing keys like ctrl if (1) the selection starts with a blank line, and (2) it includes 2 or more list items. It will also ignore keyboard shortcuts if those conditions are true, so to do copy, paste, etc. you would need to use the toolbar buttons instead (trying to get this to work in a way that completely avoids the bug got too messy). (Again) not a perfect fix, but at least it will prevent you from inadvertently screwing up your text.