RE: [gtk-list] Mouseless GTK+

["Arjan J. Molenaar" <arjan xirion nl>]

Hi,

> --
> I am slightly frustrated about trying to interact with GTK+
> applications without a mouse. Before blaming anybody, I would like to
> know how responsibility is divided between the widget set and
> applications. 
> 
> To illustrate what I am talking about, you can run testgtk in gtk+
> 1.2.4 and select "entry". Now try to type into the dialog.
> Intuitively, I would expect to be able to type into the text entry
> field at the top. But the only keys which have effect are <Tab>, which
> navigates to the entry field, and Shift+<Tab>, which navigates to the
> close button.
> 
> I also like having <Esc> to make the dialog go away, like in Motif and
> Windows. It could just as well be Ctl+C, of course, but there should
> be a way and it should be standardized.
> 
> This leads up to two questions:
> 
> 1. Does GTK+ standardize "feel", or is this up to the application.
> 
>    If there is no standard, is this intentional or just because there
>    hasn't been time to set one?
>    I feel that GTK+ should standardize feel, but if it has decided not
>    to, I'd like to hear the reason.

GTK+ doesn't feel... some widgets (like CList) have standard behaviour
(except tab to switch from one widget to another and ENTER, which will
activate the default button in most cases),
but it's all up to the programmer to let the application behave nicely.
GNOME however has a standard for user interfaces, but I wonder how many
people are using them. It's easy to code a window with everything in it, but
making it react on key events properly is another story.

However, I think it's a good thing that GTK+ isn't that "standardized",
otherwise you will be getting those Visual basic kinda widgets (it works one
way, but if it has to do something else (for whatever reason) you have to
hack around the existing code, making your app unreadable and making it slower
too.

> 2. If GTK+ does standardize feel, what is the division of labour
>    between application writers and the widget set in implementing the
>    feel?
> 
>    Specifically: Should dialogs come with default key bindings? (They
>    do in Motif). Should keyboard focus be automatically set to a child
>    widget? (I think it is in Motif?)
> 
>    So when mouseless operation is buggy, should I try to fix the
>    widget set or the application?
> 
> Jon
> 
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