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

[Joe Chasan]

< top postd for JE >

firstly, how is this any different from <ESC> to get out of a popup 
update? if you change one, you'd have to change both.  i am not denying 
that i don't get calls from customers who complain things weren't saved
that turned out to be because they pressed <Del> to get out of a popup 
box instead of <Esc>, but my point is that its not the only place in 
filePro where this logic/design is used, and if you change one, you 
[should] have to change them all.

secondly, i'm sure there are users out there who put a hard-tab in
beginning of paragraph to indent, or as a separator between something 
that makes sense to be columnar in their minds.

-joe

On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 10:49:45AM -0500, John Esak wrote:
> 
> 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!!!
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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-Joe Chasan-                      Magnatech Business Systems, Inc.
joe at magnatechonline.com           Hicksville, NY - USA
http://www.MagnatechOnline.com    Tel.(516) 931-4444/Fax.(516) 931-1264