Feature: move cursor to first text field when opening dialogs

[Douglas]

@Grace

Aaah… really happy that you’re nearly done

Thanks Grace… it’s been a real slog. With a dozen actors and 40+ suits - so many problems to solve with fabrics, swapping actors, etc, and bad measurements! In fact I’m I recutting a whole jacket as I speak due to bad measurements. 1 more (cover AKA understudy) butler to cut, and I’m done (fongers crossed) … until we have to make another bunch of suits for more covers. Covid has had a major effect on shows as there now has to be more covers in case any one actor gets sick. Plus if the tour runs long enough we may need to make more suits down the road if actors are replaced.

[Douglas]

@bernt

And when you are trying to modify the dialogs, can you try to add the possibility to move the dialog position with the mouse-press-and-move on the title bar? Or change the standard position to be top left via option?

I know some dialogs can’t be moved, but I thought most of the tool dialogs can be moved?

As far as position… I think you mean user default, as the standard is :

" Qt. A dialog is always a top-level widget, but if it has a parent, its default location is centered on top of the parent’s top-level widget (if it is not top-level itself)."

In other words are you wanting dialogs to open at the parent Window’s top left corner?

[anteater]

Phew, lots of ideas here.

For the basics:

• Sounds like there’s consensus that it should be possible to have the focus go to the first text field.
• @Pneumarian and @Grace both agree with having the text of the field selected by default.
  • @Douglas pointed out that this could lead to accidentally deleting the contents of the field, which would be bad. I can see that if you’re adjusting an existing entity you probably want to be at the end, and if you’re working on one you’ve just created (which is most of what I’ve done) you’re more likely to want to replace it all.
  • Given that, I prefer putting the focus at the end of the field (less chance of data deletion, and it’s easy to select or delete all of the text from there with the keyboard).
• This should apply consistently across all tools with text fields
• There should be a keyboard shortcut to toggle this option.
• The option should take effect immediately.
• Shift-Enter should open the Fx dialog if the focus is on a formula text box.

There were other suggestions about highlighting and general dialog usability, which @Douglas is answering, so I’m going to keep my focus on the parts I described above.

[Douglas]

@anteater

@Douglas pointed out that this could lead to accidentally deleting the contents of the field, which would be bad. I can see that if you’re adjusting an existing entity you probably want to be at the end, and if you’re working on one you’ve just created (which is most of what I’ve done) you’re more likely to want to replace it all.

Well, the good news here like I said is that the CheckState() routine that validates formulas resets the OK button on a continual basis, and it grabs the Enter key - so Enter has no effect on the forumla (QPlainTextEdit) fields. The Esc key is handled by default to close a dialog - a MacOs thing, so again no effect on the text . Still leaves deleting the contents with any other key. Note: QPlainTextEdit supports undo, so if one does accidentally delete a formula you can just undo.

So here’s a thought - I believe we could distinguish between a 1st time “new” tool and an edit dialog. For example - that’s how the Piece Tool dialog works. In other words, maybe make the content text selection only with the 1st time through a dialog, while with subsequent edits, use the cursor at the end? It would solve both issues… make it easier to overwrite a new field where for example the length or or angle is drawn arbitrarily, while maintaining the integrity of existing formulas when editing. And everybody’s happy.

@anteater

There were other suggestions about highlighting and general dialog usability, which @Douglas is answering, so I’m going to keep my focus on the parts I described above.

Just a note. I had all the dialogs updated with additional features just waiting to upload the branch, and had a major unrecoverable hardrive crash. Lost most all that work. In the process of putting that back together. Which is Ok, for as usual I’ve found ways to make improvements on what I had.

[Pneumarian]

@bernt

And when you are trying to modify the dialogs, can you try to add the possibility to move the dialog position with the mouse-press-and-move on the title bar? Or change the standard position to be top left via option?

Which OS are you in? In Ubuntu Linux there is an OS level preference that toggles whether one can move the sub-windows or not.

[bernt]

Yes, it would be nice, if we can choose to open dialogs at the parent Window’s top left corner via option.

[bernt]

Yes I’m using Ubuntu Linux.

[Pneumarian]

@bernt, In that case: install Tweaks from the Ubuntu Software repository, open Tweaks, choose the Windows tab, & deselect Attach Modal Dialogs. You should now be able to move the dialog windows around freely.

Or you could hunt down the file to manually change the setting.

I hope this helps!