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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide

Complex Scopes

This section describes the behavior supported within selection scopes that contain data elements and objects, elements that the user can activate and toggle, text with objects and elements that the user can activate and toggle, and active text regions.

Data Elements and Objects

In general, selection scopes contain data elements, objects, or both. The selection behavior of data elements and objects are similar. Selecting either a data element or an object selects or deselects it. The differences between the two lie in their default actions. The default action for an object is for a view of the object to be opened (or, in the case of audio objects, to be played). The default action for a data element is application specific.

Elements That the User Can Activate and Toggle

Selection scopes can contain elements that the user can activate and toggle, such as push buttons or check boxes. Although a user can select these elements, the result is no selection. Selecting such elements actually affects the element itself (such as activating it) instead of affecting its selection state. A user cannot select such elements via individual selection techniques. However, the user may be able to use a group or adjustment technique to indirectly select these elements.

Text with Objects and Elements That the User Can Activate and Toggle

Text scopes can include objects and elements that the user can activate and toggle, interspersed with characters. However, because they are contained within text, these objects and elements are treated like characters with respect to formatting. As a result, when using navigation, the text cursor stops immediately before and after these noncharacter elements. The text cursor changes to an element cursor in between these noncharacter elements. In multilevel navigation, each noncharacter element is treated like a word.

Active Text Regions

Textual scopes that include only character elements can treat a contiguous group of characters as an active text region, which is specially highlighted and which acts like an object or element that the user can activate.

When a user selects the characters in the active region with the standard press, move, and release of the select button starting in an active region, the operation always performs the usual selection of text. However, clicking the SELECT button in an active region activates that region. Performing this same operation in an object region selects the text in the entire object region. Double-clicking SELECT displays the corresponding object. Also, when the cursor is in an active region, pressing Ctrl Enter (or keypadEnter) performs the default action, which is as follows:

  1. In an active region, the selection invokes the corresponding action

  2. In an object region, the selection displays the corresponding object.

In either case, if the user presses Enter, a new line is inserted. If the user presses Select or Ctrl Space (with or without Shift), text is selected.


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