Handling Enter key presses on Buttons in JavaFX

[Tomas Mikula]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 6:48 PM, Michael Berry <berry120 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7 June 2016 at 23:30, Tomas Mikula <tomas.mikula at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 6:10 PM, Michael Berry <berry120 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7 June 2016 at 23:04, Tomas Mikula <tomas.mikula at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> What about forgetting the whole notion of a "default button" and the
>>>> only
>>>> effect of setting the default property to true being that the button
>>>> will
>>>> start as focused?
>>>>
>>>> So I add a question:
>>>>
>>>> 3) Would anyone miss the "default button"?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Afraid I would - I find the visual difference of the default button
>>> rather useful.
>>>
>>
>> The visual difference is also what is confusing when there is also a
>> focused button. Maybe they should then lose its visual distinction when a
>> different button is focused (at least in Jonathan's point 2) - non-OS X
>> platforms).
>>
>
> Perhaps this is just a pure difference of opinion - I find the visual
> distinction helpful because it provides a cue (from a UX perspective) as to
> which button the user can be expected to hit in "normal" behaviour. This,
> in my mind, is very different from the (much more subtle) cue that shows
> the currently focused UI component.
>

If Jonathan's plan is executed:

> 2) On non-OS X platforms, we change the behavior so that Enter (and
Space) will fire the _focused_ key, if one is focused.

then any visual cues on the "default" button are misleading (while a
different button is focused, that is), since it will not be triggered on
either Enter or Space.

Tomas


>
>
>>
>> Tomas
>>
>>
>>> While it would be possible to just use CSS to style it differently, this
>>> (in my mind) would be a step backwards (and that's before the issues that
>>> would arise from a backwards-compatibility standpoint due to removing an
>>> existing property.)
>>>
>>> Michael
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Tomas
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 5:47 PM, Jonathan Giles <
>>>> jonathan.giles at oracle.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Hi all,
>>>> >
>>>> > One thing I've been looking into recently is the issue of what the
>>>> Enter
>>>> > key should do when it is pushed with regards to buttons in a UI where
>>>> one
>>>> > of those buttons is a 'default' button. There are number of Jira
>>>> issues on
>>>> > this topic, and I wanted to poll the community to understand its
>>>> opinions.
>>>> >
>>>> > The current situation is that the Enter key does not fire the focused
>>>> > Button. The Enter key is reserved for firing the 'default' Button in
>>>> the UI
>>>> > (i.e. if someone has created a Button instance with the default
>>>> property
>>>> > set to true). A default button is rendered slightly differently (in
>>>> Modena
>>>> > it is blue for example). To fire the focused Button, the user must
>>>> press
>>>> > the Space key.
>>>> >
>>>> > Tom Schindl filed a bug (JDK-8139510) that is a good example of the
>>>> > 'problem' this creates. In the bug report, a dialog is shown to the
>>>> user.
>>>> > In the dialog is an OK button and a Cancel button. The OK button has
>>>> been
>>>> > made the 'default' button. Regardless of which button has focus, the
>>>> Enter
>>>> > key always fires the OK button. The only way to fire the Cancel
>>>> button is
>>>> > via the Space key. This can be very confusing for users who have
>>>> tabbed
>>>> > specifically to the 'Cancel' button and then pressed the Enter key,
>>>> only to
>>>> > find they unwittingly fired the 'OK' action.
>>>> >
>>>> > To me this has always been a little counter-intuitive, because of my
>>>> > heritage as a long-time Windows user. I believe Linux is much the
>>>> same as
>>>> > Windows. For others who grew up on Mac, I'm less sure on what people
>>>> expect
>>>> > (but it seems to be that the Enter key fires the default button, not
>>>> the
>>>> > focused button, i.e. JavaFX current behavior matches what is expected
>>>> on OS
>>>> > X).
>>>> >
>>>> > What I'm proposing we do is to change the behavior as follows:
>>>> >
>>>> > 1) On OS X we do not change behavior at all - we keep the current
>>>> 'Enter
>>>> > means default' and 'Space means focus' semantics.
>>>> >
>>>> > 2) On non-OS X platforms, we change the behavior so that Enter (and
>>>> Space)
>>>> > will fire the _focused_ key, if one is focused. If no Button is
>>>> focused
>>>> > (e.g. focus is in a TextField, etc), then Enter will work as it
>>>> currently
>>>> > does and fire the default button, if one is specified. In short,
>>>> default
>>>> > buttons will still be rendered blue to hint to the user that they are
>>>> the
>>>> > default button, but they will be less prevalently fired by Enter key
>>>> > presses - only when they also have focus.
>>>> >
>>>> > The two questions that I have are:
>>>> >
>>>> > 1) Will this confuse users when there is a behavior change (and
>>>> > presumably, this change will be made in JDK 9 and not backported to
>>>> JDK 8).
>>>> > If it will confuse users, is it still the right thing to do?
>>>> >
>>>> > 2) Do we want to have different behaviors for OS X and non-OS X? I'm a
>>>> > newly inducted member into the cult of Mac, and I don't yet have all
>>>> my
>>>> > bearings sorted out, so I don't have a strong opinion here.
>>>> >
>>>> > Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.
>>>> > -- Jonathan
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Michael
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Thanks,
>
> Michael
>