Subject: Re: Cursor movement, insertion point
From: sam th (sam@bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu)
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 10:45:49 CDT
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On Thu, 11 May 2000, Mike Nordell wrote:
> I've done some local patching in fl_BlockLayout.cpp, and _think_ I've got
> the same behaviour as e.g. MSWord regarding BOL, EOL, move right from EOL
> position and so on, but I don't think it's the right way to do it.
> Example: You have one paragraph containing two lines. On the first line
> you press END to get to EOL. The cursor moves to after the space in the
> last word on the first line. I think this is the wanted behaviour. But,
> when you the press cursor-right to move to the beginning of the next
> line, it moves the cursor to the _second_ position on the second line. It
> might be just me, but I don't like it.
Well, I think this is the feature/bug mentioned earlier. If you are at
the end of the line, you are really at the beginning of the next line. In
word/wordperfect, if you are at the end of the line, there is something to
move across to get to the beginning of the next line (it's called a soft
return in wp), but in Abiword we have no such construct. I think this is
a mistake, and not an example of 'just working.'
> Now, what cursor-moving behaviour do we really want?
> Maybe this is something where all the wrinkles have already been ironed
> out and I'm just ignorant of where to find this information, but I think
> it would be nice to have the opinions and decision in a central place. If
> this poll turns out to be useful, I suggest we put it in an AbiWord
> document like "abi/docs/CursorMovements.abw", and maybe even on the web.
>
Well, when you say 'put something on the web' I just can't resist. I
already put your blank draft up (under the text files section). :-)
> I created an ASCII table for it, and hope you would give your input. I
> included it as a file, since it alos contains some terminlogy used. I
> hope you can stand CR/LF. If not, would someone with accesss to a tool
> strip'em and repost? Thanks.
>
> Note that I'm not discussing the issue of platform dependent behaviour
> for PgUp/PgDn. I think that's the next point regarding cursor
> movement/document scrolling.
>
> I got an idea right now. Maybe it's the insertion point that ought to
> know where it is, not the document/world that ought to know where the
> insertion point is! Think about it. Does the "world" around you know
> where you are? No, you (hopefully :-) ) know where you are in the world.
> If anyone tells you to go somewhere, it might be a matter of culture
> _how_ you decide to go there (see the analogy with PgUp/PgDn on different
> platforms). If at all. Cursor would have to know about "line" and "run",
> but if it's using their public interfaces... It's also a propert of the
> cursor, rather than the view, if it should "blink".
> Please, comment!
I think this sounds like an excellent idea (although I know little enough
about the ptbl mechanisms). And the cursor could be easily extended if we
wanted, say, different color cursors (or anything else).
<snip>
sam th
sam@uchicago.edu
http://sam.rh.uchicago.edu
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