We need a referendum... on MEMO...

[John Esak]

Okay, we've started using the MEMO function lots more now that some of the
small niggles are fixed in 5.6 (and 5.0.15).  Mainly, the prompts for
inserting (D)ate and (T)ime can now be mnemonic as they really should be
(with an environment var.)

Anyhow... here's the deal. A girl at Nexus started up this new filePro file
to track the trips our sales people make. It is nothing but a simple flat
file with name and address, and some notes. I put in the *two* notes
sections she wanted, Follow-Up's and Outcome. The whole screen looks nifty
and works quite well... EXCEPT... and this is a GIANT EXCEPT.... To get out
of either of the MEMO fields, the user has to press ESC ESC (or just ESC on
Windows).  What a pain!  Not being able to just TAB into and out of these
MEMO fields completely *ruins* the look and feel of filePro. After years and
years of getting people to become used to what TAB does and what ESCAPE
does... to have to show them this totally NEW functionality... well, it's
horrible. To see exactly what I mean, you can check out the little training
clip I did for this program at:


       http://www.valar.com/tripsheet.wmv


You will see the problem precisely... and, I think... along with several
others I've talked to, that  the situation can be FIXED. How?  FP Tech makes
one decision... one decision to break some programming that *some* few
people may have in place.... in order to provide the vast majority of folks
out there with a functionality that is much preferred. I'm betting a
referendum here will prove out that a VERY high percentage of programmers
would rather have things work in the following way. Simply put, the TAB key
should NOT function while your cursor is inside a MEMO field. Instead it
should immediately take you to the next field in the cursor path!  This
would make MEMO's (and at least the way I've implemented them here) work
like any other filePro field with regards to the TAB key and the ESC key.
Who in the world relies on or needs the TAB key to work while inside a MEMO
field????  I'm betting no one really.  Take a quick look at the training
clip... it's long and boring because I have to talk as if there are new
people watching who don't know anything about how to run filePro... so no
need to watch the whole thing.... just watch long enough to see what I'm
talking about with the MEMO fields.

Then, vote... put up your opinion in a YES change the TAB key to work as it
should.... or NO leave things mixed up like they are now.  Put up an opinion
or just a vote... but let's see if we can't get this thing changed now...
before it prevents many others from trying to use MEMO's in more and more
applications.

John

P.S. - Yes, I understand that it could be viewed that TAB should work as a
TAB inside the  little MEMO editor... That wasn't a bad design decision...
or really any kind of foul up at all.... It is all very correct... and I
don't really mean to say it is "wrong".  BUT, it totally screws up the
general way filePro is used... and in the last analysis makes MEMO's that
much harder to use.  I hope you all agree with me and I'm not just imagining
how much of a pain this is....  (Actually, the only other 3 people I've
asked about this, fully agree... so I'm not too worried.)  Watch, then
 Vote.  I don't know that a landslide of YES's would do much to get it
changed by FP Tech... but it would be a start.  The next thing after this...
would be to get some kind of *triggers* wrking while in a MEMO field.... but
I'm willing to start small.  :-)

Indientally, if you've read this far... my long-awaited... (at least, long
announced) special, major new thing is finally almost ready.... Next week
some time for sure!!!