Alex Tweedly wrote:
> I do not currently have "mobile text field objects" - all I have
> are just standard LC fields, so returninfield is all I need for
> the 'return' part of the problem - no need for 'inputReturnKey'.
If this is just for yourself then the following may not matter much,
since you know what to expect and can handle whatever you choose to make.
But if this app is for others to use, using a LiveCode-native field
instead of a mobile-native field will very quickly show why
mobile-native fields are important.
Ideally of course, given the central role editable text plays in apps,
there would be just one object that can work in the IDE and on the device.
And fortunately that was funded a while back:
Infinite LiveCode: Native Field Object
https://livecode.com/project/infinite-livecode-native-field-object/
IIRC that completion is dependent on the completion of some other
aspects of LCB which are still being refined, so in the meantime we need
to work with what we have, weighing the tradeoffs between LC-native
fields and mobile-native.
The biggest is how selection is handled. LC-native fields will bring up
the device keyboard when entered, and you can type into them. But
that's petty much it. Designed as they were for the desktop, selection
is fundamentally different.
The mobile-native text editing experience users are accustomed to allows
them to drag-select text, or long-press to select a word, and once a
selection has been made handle controls appear at each end of the
selection run, which can be dragged to adjust the selection.
There's also a popup panel that the OS provides when a text selection is
active in a mobile-native field, offering a menu of options for common
commands like Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, and sometimes Search and others.
When attempting to emulate mobile-native fields using LC-native fields,
you'll have to make all of those UI elements from scratch. And since
clipboard control is not currently supported by LC on mobile as it is on
the desktop, any sort of copy and paste that would work between apps as
users expect would be difficult if not impossible to achieve.
But when using a mobile-native field, you get all that for free.
For a brief while I once considered trying to come up with a framework
for emulating mobile-native fields with LC-native fields. It was
daunting enough to deal with the tedium of crafting the selection
handles, and the absence of integrated clipboard support ultimately
prompted me to stop and put my time into more productive tasks.
You're a very talented and nimble thinker, but I suspect you'll find
that until we get one field control that works in both the IDE and on
mobile devices, you'll have a much better time focusing on ways to use
mobile-native fields.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Systems
Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
____________________________________________________________________
ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com
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