changing inkey to lower case

[townsend]

As the user enters text, I'm using this routine, to change each character to lower case, on the fly.

Code: Select all

on keyup
     put lower(me) into me
     select after text of me
end keyup

It works okay, until the user, uses the arrow keys to move the cursor back for an edit.
That Select command there, is nice, that you can place the cursor before or after or anywhere in the text.
But how to I query the text field to find out what position in the text, the cursor is currently at?

[bn]

Hi townsend,

have a look at rawKeyUp, it catches the arrowKey and all the others, and at selectionchanged / selectedChunk. If the insertion point is just the cursor without a selection then word 4 of the selectedChunk is 1 lower than word 2 of the selectedChunk. E.g char 20 to 19 of field 1. KeyUp does not catch the arrowKey. The selectionChanged handler is for handling the shift key and the arrowKey to make an actual selection or the user click-drags to make a selection.

put this into a test field and have a second field for the output:

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on rawKeyUp theKey
   put the selectedchunk into tChunk
   if word 4 of tChunk < word 2 of tChunk then \
      put "the chunk: " & tChunk & cr & "the key:" && theKey & cr & "no of characters in field: " &  length(me) into field 2
   pass rawKeyUp
end rawKeyUp

on selectionChanged
   put the selectedChunk into field 2
end selectionChanged

Kind regards

Bernd

[townsend]

Thanks for the code Bernd-- This is a good example of-- 'the selectedchunk' function.

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on rawKeyUp theKey
     put the selectedchunk into tChunk
     put "keyword 'the selectedchunk' =" &  cr & tChunk & cr & cr into fld "status"
     put "the key code is:" && theKey & cr after fld "status"
     put "# of characters in field: " &  length(me) after fld "status"
     pass rawKeyUp
end rawKeyUp

Now I see how this works.

137 rawkey.jpg (30.35 KiB) Viewed 5044 times

Let me ask you this. When I'm using: 'on keyDown' or the 'on rawKeyDown' the inkey value has yet to be displayed. But when I change the value of the passed inkey, it does not change the value of the original key press. The original key press always shows up in the field. Is there any way, not only to capture the inkey, but change it before it appears in the field?

[mwieder]

There is, but you have to do it very explicitly yourself. Two things to do: first, set the character into the field, and (very importantly) *don't* pass the message at the end. Something like this:

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on keyUp pKey
     if pKey is space then
          -- for the simple case where it's just after the existing text
          put "*" after me
     end if
     -- don't pass keyUp
     -- pass keyUp
end keyUp

[townsend]

Okay-- thanks.

Here's the final code on converting to lowercase on the fly.

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on keydown inkey
     put the selectedchunk into tChunk
     put word 4 of tchunk into pos
     if chartonum(inkey) >= 65 and chartonum(inkey) <=90 then
          put lower(inkey) after char pos of me
     else
          pass keydown
     end if
end keydown

[Mark]

Hi,

I think you should be able to do this directly:

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set the caseSensitive to true
if inkey >= "A" and inkey <="Z" then
  -- etc

Kind regards,

Mark

[townsend]

There's still one thing I'm having a problem with. I has to do with the instance where a user highlights a couple of letters in the middle of a word, and wants to replace them with another couple of letters.

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if length(the selectedtext of me) >0 then
          replace (the selectedtext of me) with lower(inkey) of me
end if

This code replaces the first letter okay, but because the cursor ends up being positioned at the beginning of the field, the second letter ends up in the wrong place. I know the position, where the cursor should be, but don't know how to position it there.

Is there a way to move a cursor within a field, with code?

[Mark]

Hi,

You can set the cursor in a field with

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select after char x of fld y

Best,

Mark