[pilot-db-list] Keyboard thoughts

[Craig B. <cr...@bo...>]

Feature suggestion:
It occurs to me that a good deal of Palm Portable keyboard support is
already in Pilot-DB with the jog dial code.

There's just some small areas that would really finish off the ability to
get basic keyboard functional.

The Handera Jog dial simply sends Fieldnext and FieldPrev virtual
characters.  These can also be entered with graffiti and the up down
cursors on the Palm portable keyboard.

Thus, once you've pushed in the jog dial, you can in fact navigate the
highlight bar with either the PPK or graffiti currently from record to
record in the record list view, or field to field in a record.

In fact the record edit view is even better because the highlight bar
appears as soon as you enter the FieldNext or FieldPrev virtual character
either by graffiti or the keyboard.  There's no need to first push the
jog dial in.  It might be nice if the record list mode worked this was
too, as other jog dial enabled apps do.  I note you can also bring up the
highlight bar in the record list by hitting Enter on the keyboard, and
the record is selected (opened for editing) with an additional Enter
press.  It just seems to me that the highlight bar should work the same
way in the record list view as is does in the record edit mode (i.e.
appear as soon as you enter a FieldNext or FieldPrev virtual character).

The remaining issues that would need additional coding...

-Currently there doesn't seem to be a keyboard or graffiti action that
can set focus on the field.  Meaning that when jogging or FieldNext'ing
to a record field, even though the cursor blinks in that field you can't
input text with either graffiti or the keyboard.  You first need to tap
the field.  Once you've tapped on a field with the stylus, you can enter
text in any other field regardless if you navigate to it with the jog
dial, Tab/Shift Tab character, or FieldNext FieldPrev character.  It's
just that initial tap that's getting in the way.

-There's seems to be no way to exit the record via graffiti or keyboard.
And here too there seems to be a Handera jog dial inconsistency.  With
the jog dial you can leave the record with either the back/escape button,
or by pushing in the jog dial.  So pushing in the jog dial both enters
and exits the record.  Normally only the back/escape button should exit.
And while enter (keyboard or graffiti) enters into a record from the list
mode, enter doesn't save the record and return you to the list view.  For
good keyboard support, any or all of the keyboard virtual characters for
Enter, OK, and Done could/should do this.

-And the last remaining function to support would seem to be the "New"
virtual character.  Which is "Fn Space" on the PPK.  Both in the Record
list mode to start a new record, and the Database list view to start a
new database.  Though I'm aware in the record list view this can be
accomplished with Command N, it would be good to trap for both.

It nice that most of the other major menu options have Command shortcuts
that can be leveraged with the keyboard.

I just wonder if Enter virtual character (graffiti and keyboard) might be
trapped in many of the dialogs for activating the default button.

For example you can bring up Find a database with Command F, and the
focus is set on the text field so you can immediately enter the text to
find.  However if the Enter character was trapped for you wouldn't have
to tap the Find button.  At the end of the text entry you could enter the
diagonal stroke if you using graffiti entry, or the Enter key on the
keyboard.  There is a work around in the mean time for those with a good
memory for keyboard tricks, you can hold Ctrl and Alt and the first
letter of the onscreen button you want to push (in this case F for Find),
and "push" the button with the keyboard.  The feature doesn't work in
dialogs with two buttons starting with the same letter, and I haven't
checked to see if any of those occur in Pilot-DB.

Anyway, a but of a ramble, but hopefully some useful thoughts.

On a side note I'm amazed you got so much functionality in Pilot-DB
already with the current small size.  I noticed the other day that
SmartList/ThinkDB is over 500K now.  It's got more polish, glitz and
*some* nice stuff,  there's no way it has almost 400K worth of more
functionality.  And in a couple areas it has some catch-up to do since
1.1B2