Re: [Pythoncard-users] clearing up tab order in resourceEditor

[Alex T. <al...@tw...>]

Kevin Altis wrote:

>Under the Options menu in the resourceEditor, there
>are menu items to move the components up, down, front,
>and back. Since this issue comes up periodically, I
>guess this needs to be made clearer in the
>resourceEditor or some documentation, and I'm open to
>suggestions.
>  
>
Yeah, documentation, yeah ....

Within the Resource Editor itself, I have a few suggestions (one small, 
one medium, two larger).

1.(small)  The menu items have shortcuts (ctrl+1, ctrl+2, etc.) but 
those only work when the main window has focus. I always want to 
re-order the components by clicking on the name in the component list 
box, and then using one of those shortcut - and nothing happens - need 
to click on the main window to give it focus first. (Or, of course, 
click on the actual component in the main window rather than its name - 
but sometimes that's less convenient - e.g. if you have a number of 
invisible components).

2. (medium) It might be good to have buttons within the property window 
for moving the currently selected component (i.e. visible reminders that 
the order is easily changeable - but functionally a duplicate of making 
the shortcuts operate in that window).

3. (larger) It may just be my style - but I have a lot of "Static Text" 
components, which are not focusable, and so don't need to be considered 
in the tab order. It would be handy for me if there was a quick way to 
move them all to the end of the order list, so I could focus on the ones 
I care about.   

4. (larger) The whole mechanism of defining tab order by selecting 
components and moving them back / forward in the order list seems like a 
poor UI (I know it's common and traditional, but it just seems a bit 
weak).  I find this works OK for "fine-tuning" - if I add a new field 
and want to get it in the right place, or if I change my mind about when 
one or two fields should come in the order - but it breaks down when I 
want to change the order completely (usually when I've been building / 
adding / moving components for a while, and finally got to the point of 
thinking about tab order.

I think there might be a couple of other methods which would handle 
these re-organizations better, leaving the "move back / forwards" for 
fine tuning only.

4a. Sort all (focusable ?) components into "reading order" (i.e. 
left-to-right, top-to-bottom) based on either top-left corner or centre 
position.
4b Same thing, but in column reading order (i.e. top--to-bottom, 
left-to-right).

4c. Point-and-click mode.  You use some menu item to enter "tab order 
definition", and then each click on a component (or selection of its 
name in the component list box) adds it to the end of the tab order; 
continue until you're done (either all components have been selected in 
turn, or when you explicitly exit the mode).


I think I'll have a go at 1, 2 and maybe 4a or 4c and see how using them 
feels.

-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net




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