Subject: Re: fields design -- proposed edit/select behaviors
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Jun 08 2000 - 03:03:27 CDT
HI Paul,
It is nice to see such clear thinking. Here are a couple of points
you may wish to conside.
> display
> -------
> Whenever the cursor is inside a field, the background of the entire field
> toggles, to visually indicate that the user is inside a field. We should
> choose a background color which is visually distinct from our usual
> selection color, though.
>
This is a good idea. My favorite color is light blue but tht might be a
problem for the blue backgrounds in some documents. Should we woory about
changing background colours if the document is not white?
> Otherwise, the contents of a field feel an awful lot like normal text. In
> most cases, you can select, format, delete, and even insert text into a
> field's contents.
>
> insert semantics
> ----------------
> Insert semantics within an editable field are as usual -- add the text
> immediately after the insertion point.
>
> Insert semantics at field boundaries are as follows:
>
> - left: display the field background (so you know it's there), but any
> inserted text goes before the field
>
> - right: don't display the field backgroung (you're past it), and any
> inserted text goes after the field
>
> Thus, you can't insert text at the beginning or end of a field's contents.
> Poor baby.
This is different from normal abi behaviour which is that with the cursor
positioned to left of the format boundary enters text as the rest of the
text to left of the format boundary.
One other feature request :-). A small drag within a field selected the
entire field.
Great work Paul. I'm looking forward to using it for Lists :-)
Cheers
Martin
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