Re: Ideas for better text entry

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On 1 Aug 2003, Krzysztof Foltman wrote:
> > Current text entry is really bad.
>
> 101% right. So is the new proposal on how to fix it.
>
> > to subclass GtkTextView to fix that.  More importantly, I need a better
> > system for when to stop editing -- currently it just looks for
> > focus-out, which is not the right thing.
>
> IMHO, the text should be accepted on:
>
> - ENTER key (Shift-ENTER for newline ?)  

For single-line entries, yes.  Multi-line entries (of which there are but a
few currently) should probably have Enter do a newline, and so only exit
edit by clicking somewhere else.

> - changing focus (by TAB or mouse etc) and maybe switching application
> too

Don't think I want switching application to end edit.  If moving back and
forth between Dia and some other window to read off text, you'd want to
keep the focus.

> - clicking anywhere outside of the text view

Absolutely.

> ESC could undo editing.

An entire editing 'session' would become part of the undo stack.  Undo
within the TextView should be done in whatever manner Gtk usually does.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| HÃrdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?