When typing in many of Microsoft's first-party apps, such as Office or the Windows 10 stock Mail app, text entry is smoothly animated (discussed here, among many other places). The text does not simply appear and the cursor does not simply teleport to its next position. Instead, there is a transition animation that causes the cursor to smoothly move to its new position.
Is there a flag or any other method to enable this same effect in apps we develop ourselves?
I've looked through the API documentation for the TextBox and the RichEditBox but I'm not seeing anything.
If there is not such a built-in method, how would I go about implementing this myself, perhaps by rolling my own TextBox?
Related
I'm trying to activate Hint from control of different application created from delphi upon focus, I'm using hook to identify the focused control, and then use WM_MOUSEMOVE, which I think will activate the Hint of that control, the handle would be the Control itself and the lParam is the Left and Top of the Control. The Control activate the OnMouseMove Event, but the Hint never shows. but when I use SetCursorPos, Hint show, but I need to show the Hint with out the cursor move on that Control. Can you please help me with this? Thank you in advance... by the way I'm using Delphi XE4
Among the really asked question is how to show the hint of a control that resides on another application (i am afraid without hook that application can not be done), the title is "Delphi - Activating the Hint from another control of Application".
First is first: That can be done without knowing what language the other app was done, but it is very complex to put it here (and i am not an expert on such way of coding, also i hate apps that work that way).
Second: The main idea is to hook the other application, search on Google some code of that apps, that can show you a rectangular hole square of the object the mouse is passing over, that application while doing it is iconized (i do not remember the name of it).
Waht such app does: As you move the mouse over the screen it overlays a rectangular over the control that mouse is over, then if you press the key to print screen, that small region is the only thing that goes to clipboard; on of such apps i saw had an extra funcion, they can move such controls if you press cursors on keyboard, also can hide/enable/disable such control... more, it can also make controls that are invisible to be visible, etc... i saw it working on my computer, and hey, for fun it is pretty and to DeBug or get extra things on some apps is also great (make some menús to be visible and enabled and then can use such funtions).
Please, please, understand i am agaist piracy and also against using such apps to let code to be run... some apps need pay for letting some menus enabled, but they have the code there, no need to change EXE to have/use that menus; just using this kind of apps makes that limited apps to be unlimited (just enable or show hidden menus and voila).
Note: To unhide menus, mouse point is not needed to be over the app, can be anywhere and is not moved.
The idea i want to say is: Any app can move, alter any control on any other app (at least on Windows) that is running, so maybe there can be a way to show such hint.
In the past i had use such app (sorry i do not remember the name) for DeBug my own apps, so i do not need to recompile in such cases where something was wrongly hidden, also work with buttons, labels, texts, combos, memos, etc.
Now my small problem is: I just need exactly what title say, but i can not make it to work.
Must be:
Mouse position must be irrelevant (it also must be able to be outside the application)
Just when a button that has focus is pressed with keyboard (Space or Enter) or just after some code somewhere on my application, i want to show the Hint of a specific TEdit for a short period of time.
I did not get Hint to be shown; not unless mouse point is over such TEdit but i want/need mouse pointer to not be over it, neither it to jump to the TEdit.
Idea Conept for that Hint to be shown: After doing some code that changes something, show extra info associated.
Example:
A button with that loads a file using an open dialog, filename is put on a ReadOnly TEdit (so it let user copy the text, but not change it); i want extra info that i punt on .Hint of such TEdit to be shown inmediatly.
That hint use is for not overload window with a lot of fields (TLabels) for showing such file data.
Simple idea: such Hint shows TimeStamp and size of the selected file.
P.D.: Not much related (since i am trying with a normal plain text hint), but hints can also store a full HTML page and with 3rd party tools be shown as an HTMLhint, so they can show a lot info of that file (also its content, etc) in a web based format; as i say i first try with standard plain text hints.
In order to show hint programatically you need to call TApplications ActivateHint method to which you specify the position parameter.
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/XE3/en/Vcl.Forms.TApplication.ActivateHint
Based on position parameter Application automatically finds which controll is at that position and shows its hint.
NOTE: Position parameter screen coordinates in pixels and not your controll coordinates. So you will have to use ClientToScreen method to change your coordinates apropriately.
You can see simple example of how to use this here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15031208/3636228
Now if you need to do this from another application then you will have to add some comunication mechanizm to these two application so that one could send a proper message to tell the other to show the hint at specific position. But this does require you to be able to change both applications.
EDIT: This works with VCL applications but I'm not sure if it would work with FireMonkey applications.
I have an interesting observation and question, but first a comment. I have been using Delphi for 14 years and have taken a job developing an iOS mobile application using XE5. This is my first time using FMX and frankly I feel like I am stepping back in time many moons ago. In other words, if this is the future, then it feels like I have crippled. No problem though. Roll with the punches. Developing in this brave new world is not just a job. It is an adventure.
Now my question. Start a FMX mobile project using the "Header/Footer with Navigation" as your base. Then add an edit control (Edit1) to the first tab item. Then set the tab control align to none and move it to the right until you can clearly see the form itself. Then add an edit control (Edit2) to the form.
Now set the form's active control to Edit1 and run the app - no focus on Edit1. Now set the form's active control to Edit2 and run the app - focus is placed on Edit2. Interesting. Tab is a foreign word to tablets, right? Why have active control or even setfocus available? Is this an oversight by Embarcadero? Any thoughts?
Long story short I think they both have potential uses.
I use the SetFocus call to manually show the keyboard. Lets say the user navigates to a page where they're 100% sure to be putting in their username (or any text), I'll use ctrl.SetFocus to show the keyboard just to save them having to click (or is it press now?) on the edit.
I don't see ActiveControl being as useful, but it could definitely still be used. You could possibly use it to set up some sort of tabbing like structure for when the user presses Next on the keyboard (when the edit's ReturnKeyType is rkNext).
Background/Context:
I am developing touch screen based kiosk application with JavaFX. The app integrates browser – WebView. The problem is that all user inputs have to be made through on screen keyboard (SW keyboard)
It would be nice to have an option to register an event-handler on WebView/WebEngine for any HTML text input element got/lost focus, so that I could show/hide on-screen-keyboard.
Even though I searched the Internet, I did not find this kind of feature.
My questions:
Does JavaFX / WebView provides any support for these cases?
If you were to tackle this problem, what would be your approach to that?
My solution so far:
I have a small button (at one corner of the screen) that allows user to show/hide on-screen-keyboard. Since they have to do that manually, it is quite annoying. Especially on sites where browsing (consuming information) and text inputs changes frequently.
It would be nice to have an option to register an event-handler on WebView/WebEngine for any HTML text input element got/lost focus, so that I could show/hide on-screen-keyboard.
A potential strategy for doing this:
Start with a jdk8 preview.
Run the application with -Dcom.sun.javafx.isEmbedded=true to enable the virtual keyboard.
Use a webengine.executeScript technique to embed jQuery into the target page.
Bind a jQuery focus handler to the relevant html elements.
In the jQuery focus handler make an Upcall from JavaScript to Java.
Upon receiving the upcall make use of JavaFX's Virtual Keyboard.
As the user enters values into the keyboard, make executeScript calls to set the value of the corresponding html field.
Some parts will likely be a bit (or totally) flaky, but perhaps other parts may prove useful to you.
In the future, if WebView is supported on touchscreen platforms on embedded devices, I'm guessing that out of the box it will work well with a virtual keyboard.
It not just my curiosity, recently I've received a bugreport concerning one of my AS3 applications. This bug can be reproduced only if the quality in flash player is set to LOW (HIGH/MEDIUM - everything is ok). The bug changes the application behaviour, but it's a mystery for me, why it happens only for LOW quality while quality is said to influence rendering and visual appearance, not the code or behaviour.
Briefly, I have a menu panel (MovieClip) with several items (also MovieClips). Very simple, it appears on a screen after a MouseEvent and a user moves a cursor from one element down to another. When the cursor reaches the edge of the second item, the menu suddenly disappears.
In my code panel hiding is set on mouse click or mouse out.
Personally, I think, that the problem is in Tweener, I have to use that old piece of code. The menu panel is shown when mouse is above a user icon, and concurrently with the help of Tweener I produce some simple effects on this icon.
I have explored adobe and firefox (my app is for web browsers and the bug is reported for firefox) bugtrackers, but so far I have found nothing. Maybe misbehaviour of flash player 11 with Arrays, already fixed... I've run out of ideas.
From the docs:
LOW
Specifies low rendering quality: graphics are not anti-aliased, and bitmaps are not smoothed.
If it only happens when rendering it set to low, then it's probably a timing issue - i.e., the bug has always been there, but because you're wrapping up rendering earlier, you can trigger then bug. Is the bug reporter's computer a slow one? Is there a lot happening at once? Is the menu being removed, set to invisible, or repositioned?
Like #jeremynealbrown said, try and separate out your class to a simple project to make sure there's nothing wrong with your logic there.
Another method, override the removeChild() method, and visible and x and y properties to see which one is setting it, then put traces before all calls that call these to see what's triggering it.
If you think the problem is in Tweener, add a MOUSE_OVER listener to the menu panel that calls something like removeAllTweens(), no matter the state of the menu panel. If the bug doesn't happen anymore, this will show you that it's related to the tween engine.
I am using the new BrowserField2 in BlackBerry OS5 to display HTML content in my app. There are 3 options available for navigation through links in that content.
CURSOR navigation uses a block cursor and actually moves through the characters of the page. Not very useful for me.
POINTER navigation uses a mouse like pointer that you move around the screen and hover over elements. This could work but there is a bug however in that the browser field captures navigation and never lets go so this mode is effectively broken if you share a screen with any other managers. Once your focus enters the browser field you cannot move focus back out and into neighboring fields. RIM has acknowledged the bug but has no work around.
NONE which is for custom navigation but they offer no explanation as to how you would do this.
What I ideally want is to simply have trackpad movements move the focus through the links and highlight them. Then a click would activate the link. I assume I would select the NONE option above and implement my own focus navigation but I am not clear how this can be accomplished with the new APIs.
Is anyone familiar with the new browser2 component could give some guidance?
Thanks!
There's a workaroudn to getting back the focus out of the BrowserField using the NAVIGATION_POINTER.
I found it in this thread:
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Java-Development/BrowserField-2-Navigation-Mode/td-p/632172
"farahh" posted this:
I found out a hack..
with the navigation set to pointer mode, a click outside the browserfield manager invokes Manager.invokeAction(int). I used the getFieldWithFocus to verify which field has focus and then switch the focus to something else.
Cheers.
Nahuel
PD: i havent found out how to get the behaviour you want, i need that as well so if you got it working please let me know, its kinda urgent in my project =(
I actually reverted back to the older browser1 (OS4) component because the navigation problems in browserField2 (OS5) were a deal breaker for me. Luckily the OS4 browser does everything I need in terms of functionality and it has the exact navigation behavior I need and there are no focus problems mixing it with other views.