Select a buttonbar button by key

[Marco Turco]

Hi,
unfortunately I still have a lot of customers that prefer to use the keyboard instead of the mouse (often in accounting application where the big work is a data-entry work).

In this sample www.softwarexp.co.uk/beta/screen2.png I have a office style buttonbar. Could be possibile to select a button of this buttonbar using the keyboard ?

Thanks.

[Antonio Linares]

Marco,

As you are using a pulldown menu, then you can define an accelerator for each menu item whose action matches with a specific buttonbar button action

[Marco Turco]

Yes, you are right
but - obviously - I have this problem when I use the buttonbar without menu.

[Marco Turco]

Solved. I used the function SetKey as turnaround.

[Otto]

Marco, could you post some code, please.
Thanks in advance
otto

[Marco Turco]

Sure.
In this sample the user can execute the button "Write" on the button bar with a mouse click or pressing the F2 key. I simply added a SetKey(VK_F2.. to make the same action.

Full executable available at www.softwarexp.co.uk/beta/test.zip

Obviously I would like to use a "Alt-W" key in this case but - as I know - I can't assign an Alt-<nKey> to the SetKey function so I used a function key.

*****************


#include "fivewin.ch"

function main()

local oWnd
local nClrText
local oBar2
local oFont

DEFINE FONT oFont NAME "Ms Sans Serif" SIZE 0, -10

DEFINE WINDOW oWnd TITLE "Test"


SetKey( VK_F2, { || ExecFunc(2) } )

oBar2 := TC5StBar():New( 46,10, 400, 35, oWnd, rgb(227,239,255), RGB(171,207,255), .f., oFont, nClrText )

oBar2:lRightToLeft := .f.
oWnd:oTop := oBar2
oBar2:lBorder := .t.

oBar2:AddItem( "", "bmpsmall\cambios.bmp" , {||ExecFunc(1)}, {||.t.}, .f., "accesos" )
oBar2:AddItem( "Write (F2)", "bmpsmall\capital.bmp", {||ExecFunc(2)}, {||.t.}, .f., "write" )
oBar2:AddItem( "", "bmpsmall\crossref.bmp", {||ExecFunc(3)}, {||.t.}, .f., "tareas" )
oBar2:AddItem( "", "bmpsmall\datetime.bmp", {||ExecFunc(4)}, {||.t.}, .f., "diario" )

ACTIVATE WINDOW oWnd ;
ON INIT WndCenter( oWnd:hWnd )

return nil

function ExecFunc(nMode)

if nMode=2
msginfo("Write")
endif
return nil

[James Bott]

Marco,

Here is an idea. Perhaps you can define a menu and then hide it (oMenu:hide()). This way you could define the hot-keys and use the Alt and Ctrl key combos. They should still work even though the menu is hidden.

James

[Otto]

James, I get this error:
Error description: Error BASE/1004 Message not found: TMENU:HIDE
Regards,
Otto

[James Bott]

Otto,

My mistake. It seems that TMenu does not have a hide() method.

Perhaps Antionio has an idea?

James

[mmercado]

Hi James:

My mistake. It seems that TMenu does not have a hide() method.

Good idea, menus don't have but buttons do, you can define hidden (or placed beyond window's bounds) buttons with accelerator keys.

Regards.

Manuel Mercado

[Otto]

Manuel,

Depending what controls in your window are active you can use
METHOD KeyDown( nKey, nFlags ).
As xBrowser usually has focus in my windows I use this method.
Maybe the METHOD KeyDown( nKey, nFlags ) from the windows class could be changed: But I don’t know if this is a good idea.

Regards,
Otto

[James Bott]

Manuel,

>Good idea, menus don't have but buttons do, you can define hidden (or placed beyond window's bounds) buttons with accelerator keys.

I have used this technique before for dialogs but I never tried it with a window. Good idea.

James

[Marco Turco]

>Good idea, menus don't have but buttons do, you can define hidden (or placed beyond window's bounds) buttons with accelerator keys.

Yes, but the accelerator system is different beetween MENU and BUTTON.

The menu accelerator activate the ACTION method while the button accelerator only SELECT the control.

[James Bott]

Marco,

>The menu accelerator activate the ACTION method while the button accelerator only SELECT the control.

If I remember correctly this is not true--button hotkeys are executed just like menu hotkeys.

Have you tried it?

James

[Marco Turco]

I checked that in a oWnd:oWndClient context the accelerator on a button only select the control while in a dialog context the bAction method is called.

See this sample test.

#include "FiveWin.ch"

function Main()

local oWnd

DEFINE WINDOW oWnd TITLE "Test" MENU BUILDMENU() MDI

@1,1 button oBtn prompt "&Test" of oWnd:oWndClient;
ACTION MSGINFO("TEST")


ACTIVATE WINDOW oWnd

return nil


function BuildMenu()

local oMenu
local cAction

MENU oMenu
MENUITEM "Quit";
ACTION oWnd:End()
ENDMENU

RETURN(OMENU)