Scroll wheel

[drmrbrewer]

I would expect the mouse scroll wheel to scroll the Stationery Pad window, but it doesn't.  It would be so much quicker if it did... any reason why this can't be done?

Similar in Navigator.  If you click on a folder in Navigator, then the scroll wheel does work, but intuitively I would expect you be able to achieve focus on the Navigator just by hover the cursor within it, so that you can then scroll up and down without having to actually click on something.

The second one above I'm not sure about... perhaps it's standard behaviour to have to click to get scroll wheel focus.

The first one surely should allow scrolling?

Thanks,

Mike

[Kirk Baker]

Mike,

Windows has always had this really irritating behavior where mouse wheel events are sent to the window/control that currently has focus.  It does not matter that you've moved your mouse over another window and wish to scroll that window instead.  The user either needs to click in that window to give it focus or that window needs to grab focus away from the window that currently has focus when the mouse cursor passes over it.

Windows doesn't even send mouse wheel events to a scroll bar that the mouse cursor is over unless the window containing the scroll bar has focus!

I could make the scrolling area of the IPTC windows grab focus away from the window that has focus but here would be the side effect.  You'd lose focus from the text field that you're currently typing in if you ever moved the mouse outside of the text field and passed over the scrolling area.

Personally I'd find that solution more irritating.  It's why I made it so you can click in any dead space of the scrolling area and drag it up and down with the mouse.

-Kirk

[drmrbrewer]

Kirk

Am a bit confused.  Probably the architecture is totally different, but there are plenty of applications that allow typing focus to be in a text field, with scroll wheel focus in the window that encloses the text field.  Take this forum environment for one... I'm typing in here, but can merrily scroll the entire view up and down whilst retaining typing focus in here.

Isn't the IPTC window in PM just the same?  Click in a text field to type, but retain the ability to scroll the entire view up and down around it?

As I said, a PM window is probably constructed completely differently to other Windows windows (erm, excuse me).

Likewise, there are other environments where there are a number of different panels within a single window, and as you move over each panel the scroll wheel focus moves (take gmail for a start).  Probably the panels in the main PM window are different to that?  Maybe separate windows in effect?  Can you not grab scrolling focus once you detect the mouse is (say) within the thumbnail panel / window?  Clearly you can detect when the mouse moves over the thumbnails, because the four icons overlaid on the thumbnails moves, but you can't use that knowledge to force thumbnail focus into that same thumbnail panel / window?

Mike

[Kirk Baker]

Mike,

Am a bit confused.  Probably the architecture is totally different, but there are plenty of applications that allow typing focus to be in a text field, with scroll wheel focus in the window that encloses the text field.  Take this forum environment for one... I'm typing in here, but can merrily scroll the entire view up and down whilst retaining typing focus in here.

Isn't the IPTC window in PM just the same?  Click in a text field to type, but retain the ability to scroll the entire view up and down around it?

As I said, a PM window is probably constructed completely differently to other Windows windows (erm, excuse me).

Likewise, there are other environments where there are a number of different panels within a single window, and as you move over each panel the scroll wheel focus moves (take gmail for a start).  Probably the panels in the main PM window are different to that?  Maybe separate windows in effect?  Can you not grab scrolling focus once you detect the mouse is (say) within the thumbnail panel / window?  Clearly you can detect when the mouse moves over the thumbnails, because the four icons overlaid on the thumbnails moves, but you can't use that knowledge to force thumbnail focus into that same thumbnail panel / window?

Gmail runs in your browser, right?  The browser has its own handling of windows and events.

Photo Mechanic on Windows uses Microsoft's MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) for its application framework and it handles the routing of messages to various windows/controls.  It likes to send all events to the window/control that has focus.  There is no separate 'scroll focus'.  There is some support for pre-translating messages and perhaps I can find a way to deal with the problem there.

-Kirk

[drmrbrewer]

OK.  So it's a limitation of MFC?  Because other Windows apps (that don't run in a browser AFAIK) also allow you to scroll up and down whilst maintaining keyboard focus in an editable text field.  Like Capture NX2 for example.  And (like gmail, which was just a quick example) MS Expression Media has a number of panels within the main window that each grab scroll wheel focus the moment you move the cursor into them.

Mike

[Kirk Baker]

Mike,

OK.  So it's a limitation of MFC?  Because other Windows apps (that don't run in a browser AFAIK) also allow you to scroll up and down whilst maintaining keyboard focus in an editable text field.  Like Capture NX2 for example.  And (like gmail, which was just a quick example) MS Expression Media has a number of panels within the main window that each grab scroll wheel focus the moment you move the cursor into them.

Are you sure you don't have any special software on your system that gives you that behavior?

For instance I just interacted with a file picker dialog (standard Windows OS-supplied dialog) that had the focus in the file name field (blinking cursor) and I couldn't scroll the list of files and directories with the scroll wheel until I clicked in the list control.

-Kirk

[drmrbrewer]

I am just referring to panels or windows created by the application itself, rather than the standard OS file picker window.  For instance, NX2 has an XMP/IPTC panel with content that is taller than fits in the panel; you click in a field to edit it, but can still scroll up and down to other fields, with keyboard focus being retained where it was before.  Most likely that's created in a different programming framework to PM, but that's the sort of behaviour I would expect in the PM IPTC window.  And Expression Media has panels similar in some sense to those in PM, but in EM the scroll focus moves with the cursor without a click-in-panel being required.

Mike

[Kirk Baker]

Mike,

I am just referring to panels or windows created by the application itself, rather than the standard OS file picker window.  For instance, NX2 has an XMP/IPTC panel with content that is taller than fits in the panel; you click in a field to edit it, but can still scroll up and down to other fields, with keyboard focus being retained where it was before.  Most likely that's created in a different programming framework to PM, but that's the sort of behaviour I would expect in the PM IPTC window.  And Expression Media has panels similar in some sense to those in PM, but in EM the scroll focus moves with the cursor without a click-in-panel being required.

I understand.

But can you tell me if when you interact with a standard file picker dialog whether the mouse wheel operates as you would intuitively expect it to operate or do you have to click in the files/folders list control to make it scroll with the mouse wheel?

-Kirk

[drmrbrewer]

The standard file picker dialog is as you describe: i.e. you have to click inside the folder part in order to scroll it.

Mike

[olidie]

I just made an observation that might be helpfull. When working with the trackpoint of my thinkpad notebook everything works like wanted: on opening the iptc pad the cursor blinks in the caption field. Still I can scroll the whole iptc pad at the same time with the trackpoint and the middle trackpad button. As soon as I grab the mouse I can only scroll inside the caption field.

[Kirk Baker]

Please try build 13158:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=7587.0

I have improved mouse wheel support on the Windows version for the IPTC dialogs.

-Kirk

[drmrbrewer]

Much improved, thanks!  Seems like you can now scroll when hovering over any part of the window except the field in which keyboard has focus.

Mike

[Kirk Baker]

Much improved, thanks!  Seems like you can now scroll when hovering over any part of the window except the field in which keyboard has focus.

Correct.

-Kirk