[Qt-creator] Click to activate vs. reposition cursor

[Ernst Huber]

Interesting to learn a little about Mac UI style guide. My neighbour has 
a Mac with a mouse that has no (one) button - which must also be a Mac 
standard. So for context menu popup in Mac UI one has to press an ALT or 
CTRL button in combination with the mouse click - that's ok if you 
cannot do else, but its far easier to have a right mouse button for 
context stuff.
Related to window activation: why not leaving it to the user how the UI 
should behave, as does the KDE/Linux desktop manager where you can fine 
tune window behaviour  -  for example the "focus follows mouse" policy 
is absolutely helpful for developers allowing rapid window switching. 
This also points it out that window behaviour should best be left to the 
window manager and not to applications to get an uniform look'n feel.

Regards
Ernst


http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdebase-runtime/userguide/kcontrol-desktop.html


Adam Higerd schrieb:
> Point of note, the Apple HIG forbids the use of click-through except in 
> a very small set of circumstances (i.e. "remote control" windows that 
> are supposed to hover in the background and be accessible no matter 
> what's active). This means that an inactive window should never process 
> mouse click events except to raise itself.
>
> The HIG has this rule for a good reason: it can never be wrong. If you 
> WANTED to click there, you can click twice; if you DIDN'T want to click 
> there but needed to raise the window, the window is raised and no click 
> is processed.
>
> (Side question, does Qt offer a way to control click-through behavior?)
>
> /s/ Adam
>
> Ernst Huber wrote:
>   
>> Tried out some other programs which can have more than one window open 
>> on Windows PC. Most (all) of them, in particular coder tools, activate 
>> the window and place the cursor where the click occured. Seems to be 
>> different to Mac UI principles. Could also have to do with SDI / MDI  
>> user interfaces, but finally it seems to be up to the implementors 
>> choice. For example OpenOffice Writer: opens documents as SDI windows as 
>> MS Word does, but clicking in an inactive window does cursor 
>> repositioning as compared toWord which doesn't.
>>
>> Till now I didn't bother about this - unwittingly I'm used to the 
>> "activate and reposition cursor" behaviour on Windows and I hope, that 
>> Qt Creator WON't be changed!
>>
>> Regards
>> Ernst
>>
>> Israel Brewster schrieb:
>>     
>>> On Feb 25, 2009, at 6:45 AM, Ernst Huber wrote:
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> What I observe is that clicking in the title bar of an editor window
>>>> (i.e. a split pane) activates it without moving the cursor position
>>>> while clicking somewhere in the coding area of an inactive editor  
>>>> window
>>>> activates it and moves the cursor to where the user clicked.
>>>>
>>>> This is different to programs such as MS Excel, Word etc. In these
>>>> programs a click somewhere in the client area of an inactive window
>>>> activates it with the cursor position unchanged. BUT in Visual Studio
>>>> the behaviour is the same as in Qt Creator - you get the cursor where
>>>> you clicked the inactive window.
>>>>
>>>> So I guess this behaviour is "user experience dependent" and not
>>>> platform specific.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Interesting point. I'm on a Mac, OS X 10.5, and have only briefly used  
>>> visual studio. In that usage, I don't believe I did much switching  
>>> between applications, so I didn't run into this behavior, at least not  
>>> that I recall. None of the other applications I have used exhibited  
>>> this behavior, so I sort of thought that it was unusual. If this is  
>>> not the case, I can probably get used to it, but at the moment at  
>>> least it bugs me.
>>>
>>> -----------------------------------------------
>>> Israel Brewster
>>> Computer Support Technician
>>> Frontier Flying Service Inc.
>>> 5245 Airport Industrial Rd
>>> Fairbanks, AK 99709
>>> (907) 450-7250 x293
>>> -----------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Regards
>>>> Ernst
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Eike Ziller schrieb:
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>>> On Feb 24, 2009, at 6:59 PM, ext Israel Brewster wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
>>>>>> One thing that I've noticed recently which seems to me to be  
>>>>>> incorrect
>>>>>> behavior is that when I click into a QtCreator edit window that is  
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> the background, it not only activates the window, it also  
>>>>>> repositions
>>>>>> the insertion point. So I click into the window to activate it, and
>>>>>> start typing expecting the insertion point to be where I left it,  
>>>>>> only
>>>>>> to find that it has moved on me. Rather annoying :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>             
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> can you please tell us which platform you are working on? Because  
>>>>> this
>>>>> is most probably platform dependent behavior.
>>>>> Thanks a lot,
>>>>> Eike
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
>>>>>> -----------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Israel Brewster
>>>>>> Computer Support Technician
>>>>>> Frontier Flying Service Inc.
>>>>>> 5245 Airport Industrial Rd
>>>>>> Fairbanks, AK 99709
>>>>>> (907) 450-7250 x293
>>>>>> -----------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>         
>>>>>>             
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
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