Re: [lmi] Allow direct drill-down editing in census manager

[Vaclav Slavik]

Hi,

On Tue, 2010-08-03 at 14:54 -0400, Wendy Boutin wrote:
> In particular, the navigational nature of wxGrid allows me to
> easily edit columns, which is a very important attribute to users
> who would typically edit the same parameter for each cell. 

Keyboard navigation is missing from Windows implementation of
wxDataViewCtrl, but that's something we will fix, see my earlier mail:

        We should implement it in the same way GTK+ does it, I think: as
        soon as you start using the keyboard, a subtle rectangle is
        drawn around the cell that currently has focus. This cell is
        always on the selected line as is the 0th column by default. Up
        and down arrows move the selection (and therefore, focused cell
        too). Left and right arrows move focus within the selected row.
        Enter starts editing. On Windows, appropriate rendering would
        the dotted focus rectangle that wxListCtrl uses too, except that
        it would highlight just one cell instead of the entire row.

I think this kind of keyboard navigation is more appropriate than
Excel/wxGrid-style, because each row corresponds to an entity, it makes
sense to select the whole row (not least because there are many commands
that operate on the selected entity as a whole). So I think that wxDVC
with keyboard navigation gives us the best of both words.

Are there any other things that you prefer in wxGrid?

> - Three clicks seemed reliably necessary to edit a control until
>     I slowed down my mouse-clicking, now it's only two. I suppose
>     the first click activates the control and the second click is
>     to begin the editing, but it seems very unnatural and feels
>     like a defect if you're a fast clicker, like me.
> - Similar (but different) behavior exists on the dialog that has
>     the toggle checkboxes. Click very slowly on the same checkbox
>     to toggle its state and observe how many clicks are required
>     before it actually changes (I stopped counting at twenty). A
>     double-click seems to change it, but that's different behavior
>     from what I'd expect and from what's in the grid sample.

Yes, I myself noticed some weird keyboard handling the other day. For
example, not only the checkboxes behave inconsistently, it should be
enough to _single_ click to toggle them.

Re the three clicks, I think the Windows version even requires
double-click to start editing (and single-click to select). I agree with
you completely: single-click should be enough to start editing a cell on
the selected row. And double-click anywhere should select and edit.

Again, this is something that can and should be fixed, but it's "only" a
bug, not a principal problem with the control.

> Is it possible to sort a wxGrid by columns? 

It's possible to implement it, but wxDataViewCtrl has builtin support,
so it makes it considerably easier.

Regards,
Vaclav