[Gnumed-devel] Focus control using the keyboard (tabbing/arrow keys/enter) (?)

[Michael Bonert]

Is 'Enter' considered by GnuMeders a bastard-child when switching between
single line fields?  How about the arrow keys?

Generally speaking... as a guideline I think it would be good to make
use of the arrow keys and enter for the movement between
fields.  Precedents for non-tab switching are M$ Excel & PgAccess -- in
both the arrow keys and enter can be used to switch between fields.

For the BMICalc in particular I think 'Enter' should be set-up to be as an
alternative to 'Tab' because many like to enter numbers with the numeric
keypad.  If your hand is on the numeric keypad, using 'Enter' to
switch fields seems to be intuitive -- at least to me.

Now you might say: Michael, What about other situations... like switching
from multiline fields?
I think there are some exceptions and multiline fields is one.

---
If we are going to make use of non-tab focus controls the
question is how do we implement them?

I came up with a way to do it using 'EVT_CHAR' events and 'SetFocus'
(refer to --
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/*checkout*/gnumed/gnumed/gnumed/client/wxpython/patient/gmBMICalc.py?rev=1.16&content-type=text/plain
-- if you're curious about details).  It is far from an elegant
solution... but functional and robust.  Ideas of how to code this better
are desired.

---
For those looking for an informative refresher on tabbing refer to:
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/gnumed-devel/2002-07/msg00015.html
Recent changes made to gmBMICalc.py
(http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gnumed/gnumed/gnumed/client/wxpython/patient/gmBMICalc.py.diff?r1=1.17&r2=1.18&diff_format=h)
 show
one other trick -- how to ignore fields and objects (e.g. -
bmi_colour_scale.Enable(false) ).


Michael