New line in memo fields without pressing the ALT button

Generally Enter and Shift+Enter are used to move to the next or previous field. Changing the behavior of the Enter key for multiline/richtext/html fields breaks that flow of control. Take adding a new record in the 'issues' screen in TCP for example, where you would then:

a) Enter the title, press Enter key;
b) Enter the description, press TAB key twice or use the mouse;
c) Enter the issue type, press Enter key;
d) Enter Priority, press Enter key;
e) ...

It's weird that moving out of the description field requires an action which is different from all the other fields.

I'm not saying that this is desired or expected behavior, but this is the reasoning behind it. The real issue here is that the Enter key in Thinkwise applications is used in a non-standard way, which conflicts with a general expectation of what it's supposed to do. Assigning two alternative behaviors to the Enter key is going to make applications inconsistent, I'm not sure if this is what we should do.

However, I fully support an extended property which:

1) Completely disables the non-standard behavior of Enter and Shift+Enter keys in Thinkwise applications;
2) Allows Enter and Shift+Enter to be used normally in all multiline-like text fields;
3) Maybe skip all lookup buttons when pressing the TAB key, instead relying on Ctrl+L.

Please let us know what you think.

Hello Henk,

I like your proposal for the extended property, and will immediately activate this when it comes available.

To rely on Ctrl+L for lookup fields is fine, a little tooltip, to mention the purpose of Ctrl-L, could help. Users are always suprised if I mention the function of Ctrl+L, so this is useful anyways.

Best regards,

Harm

Also please keep in mind that the Enter key automatically activates the tab page of a form which contains the next field (possibly determined by cursor_to_col_id). Because the TAB key should never give focus to a hidden control, there is no straightforward way to go to a different tab page by using the keyboard. Standard web forms do not have this problem because they are scrollable, and so their fields are technically visible, even when they're not scrolled into view. We'll need a workaround before we can implement this at all.

Ok, I can understand this and maybe more additional challenges can be expected when implementing a mayor change like this. But still I think this change is very important to become more in line with what is globally normalized.

In addition to this, I would suggest to never move the cursor to a popop button. Only move from field to field and activate popups with the mouse or Ctrl+L.

Isn't it an idea to go a different TAB with Ctrl-TAB or someting like this?

Any developments on this request?