Re: [lmi] expected behavior of TAB in database editor

[Greg Chicares]

On 2008-01-12 12:32Z, Vaclav Slavik wrote:
> Greg Chicares wrote:
>> Is there a savannah URL for that? Or if it was private email,
>> could you tell me the datestamp, please?
> 
> I don't know, Vadim forwarded me a brief list of problems you noticed. 
> The subject of the original mail sent to him may be "product editor 
> problems" and the only thing it said about this topic was:
> 
>  - can only tab from tree to "grid", but not back again

Okay, that's all I need: it's off-list email from Wendy, sent
2007-03-01T23:17Z, and that's the entire comment on this topic,
so I can definitely say that the answer is (1):

  http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/lmi/2008-01/msg00000.html
| (1) Pressing TAB should move keyboard focus from the grid to the next
| control in focus chain. In other words, it shouldn't be used for
| cells navigation at all.

from our POV--unless you know of a good reason to avoid that
(e.g., if it's really difficult to implement, or if it breaks
some normal user-interface practice on wxGTK).

With options (2) and (3), Tab would move focus to the next
control only if the selected grid cell is in the last column,
or in the last column and last row, respectively. One reason
why I like those less is that we have one grid with 100 columns
in production, and focus might easily seem to get lost there.
I realize we could work around that issue by instructing users
to do Ctrl-End, then Tab; or Ctrl-Home, then Shift-Tab, if we
gave Shift-Tab a similar special behavior (*). But (1) seems
much more natural to me.

And I doubt that any end user relies on the default behavior of
Tab in a spreadsheet, when the arrow keys provide a complete
and logical way of moving around the grid--at least for the
monopoly spreadsheet that most end users are familiar with. I'd
guess that this default behavior was chosen for wxGrid not for
any especially compelling reason, but only because it seemed
more or less unobjectionable and mimics popular spreadsheets.

* I do think that (1) should be refined as indicated in []:

  (1) Pressing TAB should move keyboard focus from the grid to
  the next control in focus chain[, and Shift-Tab should move
  focus to the previous control]. In other words, [neither Tab
  nor Shift-Tab should] be used for cells navigation at all.

but you probably meant that implicitly already.