Detecting "Select All" command in a field

[Mag]

Hi all fomum gurus! Is rhere a way to detect when an user selects all the text of a field via Edit menu (Command-A)?

[Dixie]

Code: Select all

select after fld 1

Dixie

Edit: Oops sorry, that's not what you wanted.,,, rather...

Code: Select all

  if  the selection = the text of fld 1 then beep

[jmburnod]

Hi Mag,

This script does the job. The question is which send it. (Mousemove, mouseleave ?)

Code: Select all

  put the selectedtext into tTextSelected
   if tTextSelected <> empty then
      put the selectedchunk into tSC
      put last word of tSC into tFld
      if tTextSelected = fld tFld then
         doMyHandler
      end if
   end if

Best
Jean-Marc

[snm]

Code: Select all

if the selectedText = char 1 to -1 of fld "myField" then myHandler

Marek

[dunbarx]

Hi.

Both Jean-Marc and Dixie are correct in that they have told you how to detect if the entirety of a field's text has been selected. Do you see this? If the selection is the same as the contents of the field, then...

But I think you were asking how to detect when the user selected all the text, and that has me puzzled. No messages are generated when a selection is being made, that is, when the cursor is being dragged across text in a field with the mouse down.

I think.

Of course, you can detect if the user does a "select all" sort of thing, but I am talking about an active text selection with the mouse.

Even a "mouseMove" handler in the field, with the filter that the mouseLoc has to be within the rect of that field, is suppressed during click and drag event. I thought i might be able to exploit this, checking the selection before and after. I will play around for a while. This kind of works, but has issues:

Code: Select all

local selectAllFlag
on mouseMove
   if the mouseLoc is within the rect of me and the selection = me and selectAllFlag = "" then
      put "full" into selectAllFlag
      put "All in"
      wait 20
      put ""
   else put "full" into selectAllFlag
end mouseMove
   
on mouseLeave
   put "" into selectAllFlag
end mouseLeave

Craig Newman

[Mag]

Thank you so much for your posts, great info, I will study all of them.

I would like to update a field where I put the number of selected characters, to date I use this message "selectionChanged" which detects the user direct action on the field, but I need to know also when the the user select all, paste, undo and so on...

[sturgis]

YOu need to override the system level handling of the keys. Basically you use the menu builder to create your menus, adding "Select all" to the edit menu.
You specify the hotkeys in question (on mac, cmd + a)
Then you edit the script of the edit menu in the menu builder.

You can autogenerate the initial menu, then you need to adapt it to your needs.

Just messing around real quickly, here is a simple script to do what you want for the edit menu.

Code: Select all

--The following menuPick handler was generated by the Menu Builder.
on menuPick pWhich
   switch pWhich
      case "Cut"
         --Insert script for Cut menu item here
-- I didn't bother to add scripting for cut
         break
      case "Select all"
         --Insert script for Select all menu item here
-- you'll need to script when certain items are available, but for absolute bare minimum example this works.
-- when the keys are pressed all text of the focused object is selected
         select the text of the focusedObject
-- then we send a message to the focusedObject to let it know that there was a selection change
         send "selectionChanged" to the focusedObject
         break
      case "Copy"
-- added the script to grab the selected text
         copy the selectedtext
         --Insert script for Copy menu item here
         break
      case "Paste"
-- added the paste command
         paste
         --Insert script for Paste menu item here
         break
      case "Clear"
-- didn't bother with clear
         --Insert script for Clear menu item here
         break
      case "Preferences"
--didn't bother
         --Insert script for Preferences menu item here
         break
   end switch
end menuPick

[dunbarx]

So dumb.

Forgot about the new, fabulous, "selectionChanged" message.

Craig Newman

[sturgis]

selectionChanged does work with a mouse drag (when the mouse is released, tested it real quick) but those pesky ctrl-a's and pastes and such just don't.

Would be really nice if the message fired no matter how the selection ended up changed. (except for that whole recursion problem of a selection changing selectionChanged handler of course)

Is there another way to do this that avoids the whole menu editing thing?

[Dixie]

Craig...

I too had forgotten all about the 'selectionChanged' message... Is there room for two dunces in the corner ?

be well,

Dixie

[PBH]

I would like to update a field where I put the number of selected characters, to date I use this message "selectionChanged" which detects the user direct action on the field, but I need to know also when the the user select all, paste, undo and so on...

Mag, if you add "Select All" to the Edit Menu of the Menu Builder and include the shortcut Cmd+A you can use this basic script, I normally start off with this as it mimics the basic Mac Edit menu for most apps. From what I've read of your posts I think this will do what you are looking for if the user presses cmd+A or chooses "select all", but Undo is a whole different ballgame! selectionChanged within the field script as the others have suggested may be your best route there.

Code: Select all

## Edit Menu Script
on menuPick pWhich
   if word 1 of the focusedObject = "field" then -- Check if the focused object is a field
      switch pWhich
         case "Cut"
            cut the selection
            break
         case "Copy"
            copy the selection
            break
         case "Paste"
            if the clipboard is "text" then paste
            break
         case "Select All"
            select the text of the focusedObject
            -- If you need further action add it here
            break
         case "Clear"
            delete the selection
            break
         case "Preferences"
            go stack "Preferences" as sheet
            break
      end switch
   else
      exit to top
   end if
end menuPick

Paul

[Mag]

Thank you all so much! Great advices, I will try to implement the Menu Builder way. Indeed will be useful also for other features I would like to implement to my project.

PS
This is my first OS X project so I have to learn all about Menu Builder