Focus confusion

RalphM · Post by **RalphM** » 11 Dec 2006 19:04

Something's weird about the focus after one went to the "Find Files" tab of the info panel and then switches between the subtabs of it.
With the following procedure the focus ends up where I wouldn't expect it to be:
1. Select a folder in tree
2. Select Preview tab of info panel -> naturally the list gets the focus
3. Select Find Files tab of info panel -> the file in list still has focus
4. Select one of the Find Files subtabs (other than Attributes and Options) -> the file in list looses focus, understandably, since the entry field of the subtab takes it
5. Select Properties tab of info panel -> Now the last used catalog item has focus instead of the file in list!

Isn't that weird? Or did I miss something?

surrender · Post by **surrender** » 11 Dec 2006 19:38

Oh yeah.. can repeat that. Guess its a bug.

Post by **admin** » 12 Dec 2006 08:49

The Catalog is the next in the line, which is... yes a bug!

The natural next fellow should be the tab cycle's numero uno again, which is the Tree.

Although, when you think about it, it would make some sense to force the focus to the list whenever the Properties tab is selected... what do you think?

On the other hand, only yesterday I asked myself: why not show Properties for the selected *Tree folder* when Tree has focus?

Hmmm?

RalphM · Post by **RalphM** » 12 Dec 2006 12:45

admin wrote:The Catalog is the next in the line, which is... yes a bug! The natural next fellow should be the tab cycle's numero uno again, which is the Tree.

Although, when you think about it, it would make some sense to force the focus to the list whenever the Properties tab is selected... what do you think?

On the other hand, only yesterday I asked myself: why not show Properties for the selected *Tree folder* when Tree has focus? Hmmm?

I would rather expect the focus to return to the last position (unless I did something to move it) i.e. in my example it should return to list.

Re the other ideas. So far the info panel was always linked with the list, no matter where the focus was, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea to change this now. And forcing the focus to list if Properties is selected doesn't make sense to me either.

Post by **admin** » 12 Dec 2006 12:57

RalphM wrote:I would rather expect the focus to return to the last position (unless I did something to move it) ...

Focus management is done automatically (not by my code). If the focused element becomes invisible, focus is moved to the element that comes next in the focus queue. It does not go back to the previous one. Of course, I could overwrite this behavior, but that would break a rule that's active everywhere else in the app.