[GNC-dev] Register text selection

[Geert Janssens]

Op maandag 21 mei 2018 13:08:05 CEST schreef Robert Fewell:
> I have been looking at getting the middle mouse button to work for pasting
> selected text and whilst trying to do that started to wonder about the
> existing preselected text.
> 
> Currently...
> If you open a register, the blank transaction date text is preselected.
> If you start Gnucash with saved open registers, the last register in the
> list to load has the blank date text preselected, this may not be the
> current open register.
> 
> If you navigate by keyboard, the next field text is preselected and the
> cursor set to the end of text.
> If you navigate by mouse, the text is not selected and the cursor is the
> mouse position.
> If you update a transaction in one register and have the other
> corresponding register open, the text where the cursor is will get
> selected. (I think this is an easy fix).
> 
> I am just wondering if we should be doing this preselected text at all ?
> 
As far as I can tell the first two (text navigation hightlights the full text, 
mouse navigation sets the text cursor) are at least common behavior, if not 
default. Find any dialog with more than one text field and try what happens if 
you tab from one field to the next or click in random fields. I would find it 
disturbing if the register would behave differently.

I don't understand exactly what you mean with the third behavior.

> Some might say it is a good indication of where the focus is, only with
> keyboard navigation, but one could simply add something like this to your
> css file which would also work for mouse navigation...
> 
> cursor entry {
>   background-color: pink;
> }
> 
> So just asking the question.

It's not just a matter of visual indication. It's also about ergonomics. Text 
and mouse navigation have different dynamics and this is reflected in the way 
text is selected or not when entering a text field.

For your information I plan to work in this area of the code soon to fix input 
methods. I intend to drop all code related to text manipulation from the sheet 
and make the gtk entry responsible for it instead. Perhaps it's best you hold 
off other changes related to text entry until that's done to avoid doing 
double work.

Geert