Re: [Gnumed-devel] SOAP widget

[Jim Busser]

> I can, however, include a header in the selection of text
> using pos1/end and delete the header.

Each heading has, to its right, a white space character (space? tab?). If I move the cursor there, I cannot backspace (delete) backwards, into the heading but if I begin a text selection to the right of the white space, I can select part or all of one or more headings, and delete this selected text. Preservation of the headings might be critical to proper functioning of any parsers, but there are probably limits on the extent of protection that can be achieved against accidental deletion, say from stray keystrokes.

It would be a shame to accidentally bugger up one's SOAP note with no option but to have to cancel it, lose it all, and start over. Multi-stage "undo", not of course for records that have already been flushed to disk, but at least for the text area in which one is working would be nice --> add to a to-do list, or does anyone know it to not be possible or feasible or desirable?

I did notice that whatever remains inside the SOAP widget can (on the Mac) be selected easily with the Mac's keyboard-based "select all" command. This could then be pasted inside a new SOAP note, and the bits restored through drag and drop.

> Pressing ENTER goes to the next section.
> ... How difficult is it to enable adding a line at the end of a section

ENTER does the same for me, until I reach Plan, after which each press of ENTER does create a new paragraph ("line").

> Or do you mean "from any line within the section" ?

It is so common in mainstream applications for the tab key to advance among screen areas "fields" that it might be nice if the tab key is programmed to advance from the end of one SOAP section (including RFE / AOE if present) to the next, whether one is at the end of the text of the previous section, or even if one is positioned inside a line within a section. Once one arrives at the bottom section, the tab key would return a user to the first section, and so on. Shift-tab would cycle backwards. Always the resulting cursor position would be the end of the text section.

The return/enter keys could start a new line / paragraph or might be separated in function so that one (the enter), instead of inputting a new paragraph character, serves to tell GnuMed "I have completed my input in this widget, please terminate the 'read' with whatever is the default operation e.g. 'Save'".

Might be nice to be able via keyboard to jump from one editing area / plug-in to another --- maybe ctrl-tab to the next editing area / plug-in, shift-ctrl-tab to the previous. Also, to be able to jump directly to a particular editing area / plug-in, maybe based on relative tab or screen position (1,2,3,4).

If anyone replies to these paragraphs, maybe change the subject to "GUI/screen navigation"?

> tabs are useful for structuring
Some way to structure point form is useful. Maybe option-tab can insert a suitable character unless unsupported by wxwidgets.

Tab characters within records would affect how any exported content is treated inside a target application. However, tabs are so central to the content of most documents that the tab character surely needs to be accommodated, given the copying-pasting people are certain to do into GnuMed from other applications' documents (letters etc).