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1.7 Alpha Pull-down selection behaviour inconsistent

Submitted by Guest on Fri, 26/07/2013 - 14:22
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We use pull-downs a lot.  I cannot understand a) how we intend them to work; b) how they do work.

If asked, I would say that pull-downs (aka select lists in html) should exhibit the following behaviour:

  1. up and down arrow should scroll the entries, page up/down scroll but multiple lines
  2. a letter should select the first entry starting with that letter
  3. if the list is pulled-down, pressing enter selects the current selection
  4. alt down arrow opens the pull-down (ie shows the entries), alt up arrow closes it up
  5. none of the above causes the control to lose focus

Playing with various browsers (all Windows), I get:

Firefox (22) - the above all work except the last (5), when a selection is made (eg Sex=female) the focus is switched to another control (I cannot work out the logic for which control) and when you press tab you do not go to the next expected field.

Chrome (28.0.1500.72) - 1 & 5 don't work. NOTE however, on a simpler screen than ours where the pull-down lists are not embedded in tables, 1 does work.

IE (10 in 10 mode) - 1 & 5 don't work. But again, on a simpler screen than ours where the pull-down lists are not embedded in tables, 1 does work.

IE (10 in compatibility mode) - you cannot even tab into a pull-down - it jumps right over them. If you do click on the pulldown, then the up/down arrows will not scroll the list properly. But again, on a simpler screen than ours where the pull-down lists are not embedded in tables, you can tab into the pull-down and also 1 does work.

 

I have a suspicion that the 'focus gets lost when you select entry in pull-down' may be our problem. That is, we may do something in the code (ie on species selection, fill breed list) and after than we are not setting the focus back to the original control.  Even if we don't do anything as a result of the selection (eg selecting the title on the customer screen) then we still lose focus.

 

The 'for Chrome & IE, things work in in select lists on simple screens but not on ours' problem is, I suspect a browser problem, and I suspect will be more problematical to resolve.

 

Note - that I suspect that this 'lose focus' behaviour is the root of the 'OPV is too clicky' complaint - because you have to keep clicking on fields to move the focus to them because it is being moved unexpectedly.

 

Regards, Tim G

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Re: 1.7 Alpha Pull-down selection behaviour inconsistent

Submitted by tanderson on Sat, 27/07/2013 - 23:09.

Firefox is trying to be helpful I think, by moving the focus to the next control. Its version of the next control, rather than that specified by the focus traversal.

I think the issue is that changing a select field refreshes the contents of other select fields (e.g. Species changes Breed), and this screws up the focus.

I can reset the focus to the original select field; this fixes the other problems, but triggers a spurious busy cursor which doesn't go away until you move the mouse.

Re: 1.7 Alpha Pull-down selection behaviour inconsistent

Submitted by tanderson on Sat, 27/07/2013 - 23:52.

Actually, moving the focus back to the original select field doesn't work too well in Firefox and Safari, if you use the cursor keys to change the selection, then tab off. The selection notification only goes to the server once you tab, so you effectively need to press tab twice to go to the next field.

In Chrome, the cursor keys trigger notification immediately, so only a single tab is required to go to the next field.

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