Re: [lmi] Yet another census view UI question: starting editing with space

[Greg Chicares]

On 2020-06-20 18:09, Vadim Zeitlin wrote:
> 
>  During the (N+1)-st round of the tests comparing the behaviour of
> wxGrid-based census view with the current wxDVC-based one, we've found
> another relatively significant change of behaviour: currently, pressing
> "Space" key when the column with a text value, such as "Insured name", is
> selected, starts editing the cell value by selecting it entirely, but not
> otherwise modifying it. This is convenient because an arrow key (or Home
> etc) can be pressed if the existing string must be modified, or any
> alphanumeric key (or Delete/Backspace) can be pressed to directly start
> entering the new value.

I don't think I ever noticed that. Personally, I'd use F2 to get
that behavior.

>  With wxGrid behaviour is different and similar to that of the spreadsheet
> programs, i.e. pressing "Space" starts editing and clears the existing cell
> contents. This is consistent with the behaviour of the other keys, as now
> any alphanumeric key can be pressed to start editing a text field, e.g. you
> can start directly typing its value (which is, again, consistent with how
> this works in the spreadsheets). However it makes modifying the existing
> value more complicated, as you either need to press Ctrl-Z to undo the
> change and restore the original value immediately after starting to edit it
> or press F2 to start editing instead (which is convenient, but I'm afraid
> might be completely unknown to the actual program users).

They use spreadsheet programs. They must know some way to accomplish
this task--perhaps by double-clicking, or some touchscreen equivalent.
I'm sure those things already work in wxGrid.

Does wxGrid support Alt-Backspace as well as Ctrl-Z? I try to avoid
the latter because it has a different meaning in a classic terminal.
Alt-Shift-Backspace (undo) would also be nice.

Oh, and I'd hope that the usual CUA keys:
  Shift+Del = cut
  Ctrl+Ins  = copy
  Shift+Ins = paste
would work by default.

> It is also
> inconsistent not only with the old lmi behaviour, but with the behaviour of
> other, non-text, fields as pressing Space on a date or a numeric field does
> not reset it, this only happens for the text fields.

If you asked me what key might have the effect of deleting something,
I'd probably think of Del first, not Space. That lmi today does this
with Space seems like a weird accident.

>  After spending quite some time thinking about it and experimenting with
> both possibilities, I still can't decide which one would be preferable. I
> also have a nagging suspicion that this might be completely irrelevant if
> the real users use the mouse to click on a cell to start editing it instead
> of the keyboard anyhow, but this suspicion is not strong enough to allow me
> to convince myself that this is not important.

I think we should just ask "What would excel do?", and do the same.
End users accustomed to msw can't say that a grid control that behaves
like excel is wrong. I just tested the "office 365" version, and it
even gets Shift-Del right.

>  So I'd like to ask you for help: do you have any preferences here? In the
> absence of any strong opinions in either direction, I'm probably going to
> leave the new behaviour as it is right now, because this is what wxGrid
> does by default, and so doesn't require any extra code to implement. But
> please let me know if you think differently.

Perfect.