Re: Space Bar Issue

["muppet" <scott asofyet org>]

developer wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> On the app I am making, when I press the space bar,
> it is treated as a left mouse click on any one of
> the gtk2 buttons on the screen at the time, and
> even a click on a gtk2 button that used to be on
> the screen.

More precisely, the space bar is "activating" the currently focused button. 
It doesn't happen at random, it takes effect on the button with the keyboard
focus.

> I don't want the users of my app to change screens
> or activate functions by pressing the space bar.
> But that's exactly what happens. Pressing the
> space bar behaves like left clicking on a button.

This is one of gtk+'s selling points, that it can be driven with the keyboard.
 This is important for systems without a mouse, or with a broken mouse, or for
doing things more quickly than a mouse will allow, for accessibility, etc,
etc.  Recall that the user can cycle through the buttons and entries etc of a
window by hitting the Tab key; i for one make use of this every day to keep
from having to grab the mouse for every little thing.

> And I don't even choose which button gets activated.

By default, the first focusable widget in a window is given keyboard focus. 
You can, of course, change this.

You can choose which widget in a window gets keyboard focus:

   $window->set_focus ($widget);

You can choose which widget in a window is the "default", such that when the
user activates the default action for a window (e.g., by pressing enter in a
single-line text entry), this is the widget that gets activated:

   $window->set_default ($widget);

You can choose which response of a dialog is the default:

   $dialog->set_default_response ('ok');


You can prevent a widget from being able to have keyboard focus, although this
is not recommended:

   $widget->can_focus (FALSE);


-- 
muppet <scott at asofyet dot org>