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View Full Version : Tab key wierdness.


DaphneDiane
2006-05-04, 02:25 AM
I've noticed some wierdness with the cycling of tabs and shift tabs, and command-L in Omniweb.

My settings:
Tab key selects form controls only
Start Page: Empty
My toolbar has a search field.
My location bar is separate from the toolbar.
Omniweb - 5.5 SP 7 / 5.5 SP 9 / 5.5 SP 11 / 5.5 SP 12

It took me a while to come up with these steps to consistently reproduce these steps, before hand I just thought what I was seeing is random. Hopefully it's enough for you to trace down what's going on.

Steps to exhibit. (Strange behaviours marked with *)
1. Start Omniweb to the default workspace and an empty window appears, with the cursor in the location field.
2. Hit shift tab, cursor moves to the search field.
3. Hit tab, cursor moves to the location field.
*4. Hit tab, cursor vanishes?
5. Hit tab, cursor moves to the search field.
*6. Hit shift tab, cursor vanishes again!?
7. Hit shift tab, cursor appears in the location field.
8. Paste in: http://forums.omnigroup.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=27
9. Hit return
10. Web page loads, cursor is no where to be seen.
11. Press tab. Location bar is selected.
*12. Press shift tab, Cursor stays in location bar!
13. Press tab, Cursor/selection moves down to the web page to the Title field
14. Press tab again. Now in message
*15. Press tab again. Still in message!
16. Press tab again. Now "Notification Type" is selected. (It correctly skips a bunch of control inbetween)
17. Press tab again. Now the search field is selected.
18. Press tab again and the location field is selected.
*19. Again shift tab here does not go back to the search field.
20. Select the search field (either by clicking it or tab to it.)
*21. Shift tab back to the location field. All the same strangeness happens on the way back as well.
22. Open the tabs drawer and double click on the page to open it in a new window
23. Now hit tab and you move into the web page as expected.
24. Repeat hitting tab 'til "Notification Type" is selected.
*25. Hitting tab once more will bring you back to the "Title" field in the web page.
*26. How ever shift tab only will cycle not only through the web page but also back up to the location bar and even back to search and then to the page again.

There is still one strangeness I have not been able to reproduce. I'll give as much details as I can remember about it.

I saw it when I was originally trying to create these steps. I had it where I had two windows both with the same web page loaded. One of the windows was exhibiting the tabs only going through the page will shift-tab working properly, the other was had the issue with the shift tab/tab not moving directly between the search and location fields. In one of these pages I had an early version of this message typed up. I clicked on the second window to test something one more time, and noticed that when I hit command-L that cursor appeared in the first window even though it was in the background and behind the 2nd window, and that the tab keys seemed to move through that window. I clicked in the message box on the 2nd window and switched back to the first by clicking on white space. At that point I noticed the strangeness in reverse, and eventually the window went to a random bookmark of mine (and I lost the first version of this message oh well)

Thanks,
Daphne Pfister

Edit: Repeated test under SP 12, and got the same results.

afb
2006-05-04, 04:37 PM
I think I got you're set up right, but the tabs go in the opposite direction for me. That is, from the start, I have to hit tab (not shift+tab) to go from the location bar to the search field; this was the case with the location bar both in the toolbar and out.

From there, the cursor focus seems to through other toolbar buttons; it's not gone. Try hitting the spacebar when you think it's gone and see what happens.

*10. Web page loads, cursor is no where to be seen.
That's what normally happens in browsers.

*12. Press shift tab, Cursor stays in location bar!
Went to "Preview Post" for me.

*15. Press tab again. Still in message!
Second tab in message took to "No icon".

17. Press tab again. Now the search field is selected.
"Submit New Thread" and then "Preview Post".

*21. Shift tab back to the location field. All the same strangeness happens on the way back as well.
Shift+tab from the search field takes me nowhere.

*25. Hitting tab once more will bring you back to the "Title" field in the web page.
*26. How ever shift tab only will cycle not only through the web page but also back up to the location bar and even back to search and then to the page again.

I don't get this.

Perhaps you could test this on a clean user account.

DaphneDiane
2006-05-04, 11:40 PM
Okay I created a new non-admin test account (only preference change was keyboard to dvorak), set up OmniWeb (Set the "Start Page" setting, split out the location field, logged into these forums and saved my password, closed all windows and quit so I could start clean)

I got exactly the same results. I also had previous tried using the space bar, enter keys etc when the selection vanished and nothing happened.

For comprasion I tried the test under OmniWeb 5.1.3.

Major differences are as follows
Forward tab from location field on blank page, only cycles between selection vanishing and the location field, only way to get to search field is the shift tab. (My habit for searching under OmniWeb 5.1.3 was Commannd-L followed by shift-tab)

Once the page loaded, again the cursor vanished (sorry I didn't mean to put an asterisk on number 10). However the first tab went directly to the title field.

Summary:
Forward tab:
5.1.3
title -> message -> search -> location -> *vanish* -> title->...
5.5 sp 7
title -> message -> message -> notification -> search -> location -> title -> ...
Backward (shift) tab:
5.1.3
title -> location >search->*vanish*->message->title-> ...
5.5 sp 7
search -> notification -> message -> message -> title -> location*
(all further stay at location)

Also for 5.5 sp 7 I have occasionly had it where if you click on message the "no icon" button get into the loop as follows. (Unfortunately I don't have a repeatable set of steps to get this)
tab: message->no icon->notification then goes to the pattern mentioned above.
shift tab: message->no icon->message->no icon -> repeat.

I was runninng this on my intel iMac 20"

afb
2006-05-05, 12:22 AM
Major differences are as follows
Forward tab from location field on blank page, only cycles between selection vanishing and the location field, only way to get to search field is the shift tab. (My habit for searching under OmniWeb 5.1.3 was Commannd-L followed by shift-tab)
Incidentally, I wonder if you've considered getting rid of the search field in favor of search shortcuts; the address bar can really replace it.

Once the page loaded, again the cursor vanished (sorry I didn't mean to put an asterisk on number 10). However the first tab went directly to the title field.
Did you try hitting the spacebar with the cursor vanishes?

I was runninng this on my intel iMac 20"
... lucky ...
That probably changes everything. I'm using a g5.

The only other thing I could suggest, other than asking someone else who has an Intel mac to try this out, would be to take a look at the Keyboard prefs > Keyboard Shortcuts. What's selected under "Full Keyboard Access"?

DaphneDiane
2006-05-05, 12:04 PM
Incidentally, I wonder if you've considered getting rid of the search field in favor of search shortcuts; the address bar can really replace it.
Sometimes I'll use search shortcuts; sometimes I'll use the search field. If I figure I'll have to refine my searches I'll use the search field, because the contents stay in it even after the location bar has been encoded. So I can go follow down a search path, read some RFCs or what not and decide I want to change my search slightly. A quick command-L/shift-tab/cursor right latter, and I can add another term to the search. Besides, Command-L (or -N) shift-tab is nearly as quick to type as Command-L (or -N) "g" space.

Did you try hitting the spacebar with the cursor vanishes?
Yes, nothing happened.

That probably changes everything. I'm using a g5.
The G5s are nice. I actually prefer the architecture* of the powerpc to intel. (* I make my living working on/supporting embedded compilers, debuggers and toolsets, specifically powerpc targeted ones so I probably am a bit biased there.)

The only other thing I could suggest, other than asking someone else who has an Intel mac to try this out, would be to take a look at the Keyboard prefs > Keyboard Shortcuts. What's selected under "Full Keyboard Access"?
I'll might see about setting up a G4/G5 Mac and trying it out later, but I figure at this point I've pretty much characterized the 'wierdness' as much as I can. "Full Keyboard Access" is set to "Text boxes and lists only.".

PS, This tab wierdness is not a major issue for me. I just wanted to make it known / documented so that OmniGroup can fix it. I sort of find quirks like this fun and interesting. It's like a look behind the scenes at how the stuff actually works. My favorite currently is the OSX glitch with the drawers and Exposé. Open a window in a program that has a drawer (or open a drawer in an existing window) and very quickly hit F11 before the drawer is fully out. When you hit F11 again the drawer will often be floating somewhere else on the screen.

DaphneDiane
2006-05-18, 09:29 AM
Just verified this also happens with sp 11.

technomage
2006-05-19, 03:52 PM
I've found that when there are multiple tabs that the tab control works only once cycle through the front window. Once you cycle past the last "tabbable" element on the foreground page, that's it. This happens with blank background tabs, so there are no other elements to select outside the front tab.

DaphneDiane
2006-06-04, 02:05 AM
Appears to be happening with SP 12, though I haven't retested the steps. Also sounds like Omni is aware of this, or at least this as it relates to the toolbar:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=507

Forrest
2006-06-04, 04:11 PM
You did send in a bug report, right?

DaphneDiane
2006-06-04, 05:27 PM
Is this not the official place to submit bug reports?

Edit: I assume you mean the feedback option within omniweb.... I have just sent a copy of this report there.

Forrest
2006-06-04, 07:13 PM
Yeah, the feedback option is the OG's recommended way of submitting bug reports. They find them here too, just not as throughly. As you noted by finding that other thread, they are aware. But I think your detailed effort in your initial post could be valuable to them.