keeping focus on filter textbox
eyet33th
Posts: 112
in the Parameters/Shaping/Posing etc tabs, whenever i click on the filter textbox to type in a search term, if the mouse pointer leaves the textbox before i start typing (e.g. i bump the mouse), i lose focus on the textbox. that means that when i start typing, i usually activate some kind of camera control like tilt or pan.
this is extremely frustrating. if i click on the textbox, that means i want to type in it. even if i then move my mouse pointer for whatever reason. if i don't click on something else, the focus should stay on the textbox i clicked on.
is there a setting or something to fix this?
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Comments
It isn't enough for the pointer to leave the box, it needs to go over a UI element (such as a slider) that responds to mouse-overs. I try to place the mouse over an inert area so that I can see the text entry box (or could if I coudl touch-type). When I reported this, a fair while ago, I was told it was a limitation of the Qt 3 framework (I think it was 3, anyway) - we know Daz is working on moving to a newer version of Qt, so with luck the issue will be resolved at some stage.
I've been annoyed by this regularly for years as well. Is there any info on whether the newer Qt version would have the same limitations?
I don't know anything beyond what I said above - and that is based on what I recall of the reply to the bug report, not a fresh reading.
does it in content search too, if I had a dollar for the number of times it’s half typed something and I click search or enter would make me rich.
At least you can switch that off press Shift+K to deactivate Keyboard Navigation.
Was there ever an update for this? I came to ask the same thing. If there is finally a new setting so the cursor stays in that text box, someone please do share how to enable that!!
This is a Qt issue (the framework used to write DS). Although a lot of work has been done on moving to a later version of Qt, towards Daz Studio 5, it hasn't yet resolved this issue or given the means to resolve this issue (depending on how much more would need doing beyond the version change).
It still happens and I don't think it will ever change. Qt works in "widgets", a widget has the "focus", so that is where typing goes (mouse clicks always go where the mouse is unless the app is exceptional). The text input widget in the parameters dialog only gets the focus when we click on it but the widgets below it have the focus transferred to them when the mouse enters them. The focus is not returned when the mouse leaves one of these widgets so the "grab" isn't a normal Qt grab which doesn't actually change the focus widget, it just redirects input temporarily.
This doesn't change in Qt5 or Qt6; widgets can still "grab" the focus (it is bad form, but they can do it) and applications can still move the widget focus any way they like. The standard design is for a widget to accept the focus by "tabbing" (tab, shift-tab) or "clicking" (mouse), here's the documentation for Qt4.8 which I believe to be the version current Studios use:
https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#focusPolicy-prop
Normally in Qt apps the (keyboard) focus sticks where it is until something is done to change it, but there's a lot of rope in Qt.
Is not once or twice that I have selected the text in the filter box (with the mouse) and before I have moved my hand to the delete-button, the cursor has moved on it's own and pushing delete has deleted the current figure from the scene...
It is not just the text box. I have all manner of glitches with cursor control in the viewport. Select something in the scene heirarchy tree and suddenly a bunch of other unintended items are selected too. Again if I select something I suddenly discover it has been moved and parented by something else. There seems to be no tolerance for even a breath of air passing over the mouse (if, indeed, it is due to inadvertant mouse movement). At other times the whole tree freezes and I can't select anything and have to move around clicking everywhere until it regains focus.