Better Key Navigation on Front Panels #2 (Tabbing Order)

[Benjamin_C]

Hi,

Another behavior that I find annoying isthe way LabVIEW manage the tabbing order with cluster.

Imagine a front panel with clusters (I thinkthat this is not unusual and that you will have no pain to imagine this). If acontrol embedded in a cluster has the key focus, the TAB key will only give thefocus to controls of this cluster. It is impossible to navigate outside thecluster!

In the following front panel I wouldexpect the following sequence when tabbing: Cluster_1.String_1 -> Cluster_1.String_2-> Cluster_1.String_3 -> Cluster_2.String_1 -> Cluster_2.String_2-> Cluster_2.String_3 -> Cluster_1.String_1 -> …

(According to  the cluster tabbing order)

 

[Mads]

Clusters should effectively not exist in the running GUI - there is absolutely no case where the user would want to know about the cluster, it's only a tool for the programmer.

[Intaris]

Sometimes the programmer wants to tab too you know.....

[Manzolli]

Sometimes may be interesting have the user "locked" into the fields within a cluster, the current behavior. I agree with Benjamin that in other cases the user should be able to go thru all controls using Tab. The Clusters are nice to organize the interface too. I think that NI can add as an option. Kudos!

[Mads]

The cluster frame does not lock the user into something useful - the tab order would lock him into the same area without the cluster frame having anything effect. We are not talking about how nice clusters are for the programmer here, those benefits will not be affected anyway - it's about how clusters behave on the front panels in built/running applications - and whether you can have proper behaviour in *both* cases. The end user should always be prioritized. Technical obstacles are a popular but bad excuse for making non-intuitive solutions. The extra level of frames currently involved when using clusters is something the user will not be used to from other applications (use decorations if you need visual grouping in the running GUI) - and if there is one rule in GUI design it's that you need a *very* good reason for introducing a non-standard behaviour.

[Manzolli]

Thanks man! You give me another idea: Decorations With Drag-and-drop Behavior

[Manzolli]

Oops, the actual link is Decorations With Drag-and-drop Behavior

[JB]

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Benjamin C. a écrit :

It is impossible to navigate outside the cluster!

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This is not true !

Ctrl-down arrow moves key focus inside an array or cluster.

Ctrl-up arrow moves key focus outside an array or cluster.

See the LabVIEW help for more details.

But I agree this is not really handy and therefore support your idea.

Message Edité par JB le 02-09-2010 07:49 AM

[Benjamin_C]

Thanks for this correction JB. I should have verified!

I have never imagined there could be another key to manage the key focus. But this will be helpful.

[Manzolli]

A lot of people knows that the key "Tab" is "go to the next field", in most of Windows applications. I run my eyes over the LabVIEW's shortcut table couple times, but was not able to memorize most of the combinations and each respective effect. Thanks to JB I "know again". This doesn't change the fact that I probably will forget and the majority of people will never know or use it.

There are more than a hundred default keyboard shortcuts in LabVIEW! I think simpler and more intuitive way will be more useful.

[Scott.Menjoulet]

This is actually a duplicate of the suggestion posted here by SanRac in June 2009: Tabbing will work for Clusters on Front Panel

 In that thread, I posted a mock-up of the changes to the "Key Navigation" page.

Can we get these ideas and the kudos merged?  That will give it a more respectable kudo count...