[comp.sys.mac.programmer] Discontinuous Selection

roberts@crash.cts.com (Robert Schwalbe) (03/14/89)

How does one employ "shift-click" selecting _without_ causing a 
continuous selection?  That is, selecting text items from a get
window - ala standard file, but *not* in a given order.

Stuffit, when displaying filenames within an archive, allows selection
of continuous items.  Is there any reason why I should not be able to
select an item at the top and shift click on some other item, without
selecting all items in between?

NAME:  Robert Schwalbe
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levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) (03/14/89)

In article <3912@crash.cts.com> roberts@crash.cts.com (Robert Schwalbe) writes:
|How does one employ "shift-click" selecting _without_ causing a 
|continuous selection?  . . .
|Stuffit, when displaying filenames within an archive, allows selection
|of continuous items.  Is there any reason why I should not be able to
|select an item at the top and shift click on some other item, without
|selecting all items in between?

I don't remember what the Interface Guidelines say about this, and it
may well depend on the capabilities of the LDEF that any individual
developer uses or writes, but the following is true both for range
selections in Excel and for stuffed files listed in Stuffit's window:

CMD-click will add an individual item to the list selected without
selecting everything between that item and the previous item selected.

	/JBL
=
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dce@stan.UUCP (David Elliott) (03/15/89)

In article <3912@crash.cts.com> roberts@crash.cts.com (Robert Schwalbe) writes:
>How does one employ "shift-click" selecting _without_ causing a 
>continuous selection?  That is, selecting text items from a get
>window - ala standard file, but *not* in a given order.

Well, in the case of StuffIt, assuming that one has paid the shareware
fee and received the latest update, one reads the documentation and
finds that the using Option instead of Shift allows discontinuous
selection.  Sorry -- I couldn't resist.

I do wish that programmers would be a little more consistent, though.
StuffIt's behavior is anomalous, even if it is generally what you
want.

-- 
David Elliott		...!pyramid!boulder!stan!dce
"Splish splash, I was rakin' in the cash"  -- Eno

matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews) (03/16/89)

In article <586@salgado.stan.UUCP> dce@salgado.UUCP (David Elliott) writes:
>Well, in the case of StuffIt, assuming that one has paid the shareware
>fee and received the latest update, one reads the documentation and
>finds that the using Option instead of Shift allows discontinuous
>selection.  Sorry -- I couldn't resist.

No, I believe it's Command-clicking that toggles the selection state of
a single list item.

>I do wish that programmers would be a little more consistent, though.
>StuffIt's behavior is anomalous, even if it is generally what you
>want.

Stuffit is following the Human Interface Guidelines for list selection
-- it's the Finder (in the View by Name/Kind/Size/Date states) and the
Font/DA Mover that deviate.  I'm not sure which I like better, but I
wish Apple would either change the Guidelines or write to them.

Jim Matthews
Dartmouth Software Development

tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (03/16/89)

In article <3912@crash.cts.com> roberts@crash.cts.com (Robert Schwalbe) writes:
>How does one employ "shift-click" selecting _without_ causing a 
>continuous selection?  . . .
>Stuffit, when displaying filenames within an archive, allows selection
>of continuous items.  Is there any reason why I should not be able to
>select an item at the top and shift click on some other item, without
>selecting all items in between?

In article <37177@bbn.COM> levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) writes:
>I don't remember what the Interface Guidelines say about this, and it
>may well depend on the capabilities of the LDEF that any individual
>developer uses or writes, but the following is true both for range
>selections in Excel and for stuffed files listed in Stuffit's window:

Actually an LDEF doesn't get passed this information; modifier keys the
same in all lists subject to the multiple selection flag setting.  The
List Manager simply uses an event modifiers longword and uses that to
enforce the shift-click command-click convention.  Unless software does
its own lists or rearranges the modifier bits before passing them on to
the List manager, they should all work the same.

>CMD-click will add an individual item to the list selected without
>selecting everything between that item and the previous item selected.

Correct, this is mandated by the Mac User Interface Guidelines, chapter
1 of volume 1 of Inside Mac, pages 39 and 40.  The List Manager handles
what this chapter calls "arrays", and "In text or an array, the result
of a Shift-click is always a range."  Command-Click is described on
p. 40 under "Making a Discontinuous Selection".  There is no standard
for Option-click there.  Stuffit does follow the guidelines.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"This signature is not to be quoted." -- Erland Sommarskog