Nevyn ([info]devnevyn) wrote,
@ 2006-07-25 20:07:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:software mac macosx cocoa

Fixing God's horrible mistake's fix.
After Gruber (and after him, pretty much all of the Mac blogosphere) bitched about the stupid shift-arrow key selection behaviour in table views, Jim Speth fixed god's mistake through a NSTableView subclass, and released a Mail.app bundle.

Now, that's all good, if you spend all your time in Mail. However, I'd like a system-wide fix. Suddenly, it came to me: an InputManager. After a bit of fiddling, I figured out how to make Jim's .mailbundle into a InputManager without even recompiling: Download the SelectionFix InputManager. (Installation instructions: Copy the folder SelectionFix into ~/Library/InputManagers/, creating that folder if it doesn't exist).

This InputManager will give every Cocoa table view non-stupid shift-arrow key selection. Wohoo! Well, with a small caveat... It only patches Cocoa applications, not Carbon apps. And which two major Apple apps aren't Cocoa? Yep, that's right... Finder and iTunes.

Dear Lazyweb: Find me's a patch that works for Carbon apps as well, even if it involves an APE.


Update
It seems that the InputManager crashes Adium 1.0 Beta. I attached the debugger but the backtrace gave me nothing I understand... Just placing the SelectionFix folder somewhere else, then launching Adium, then replacing it should fix it. Maybe I should remake it into a SIMBL plugin...

Also, it seems that the selection is wonky if you step over the first item you selected and back again or something like that.

Update
It's incompatible with VisualHub for some reason.

Update
It's incompatible with craigotis.com's iProcrastinate. I'm beginning to think some of the overriden methods aren't fulfilling all their obligations... The VisualHub bug was related to selection through scripting, the iProcrastinate one to selection with CoreData.


(Post a new comment)

Debugging output
[info]wootest
2006-07-26 07:19 am UTC (link)
I appreciate debugging output as much as everyone else, but couldn't you make it just output "SelectionFix failed to load" if it's not loaded instead of "SelectionFix: isLoaded: YES" (or "NO") every time? (Or even better, make it just print debugging output if a specific default is set. That way you could enable it manually if you need it.)

Adium crashing might have something to do with the fact that Adium uses a bootstrapper. The real process is Adium.real which is being launched by Adium. I don't recall why it does that exactly, but there you go.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Debugging output
[info]wootest
2006-07-26 07:23 am UTC (link)
Right - Adium uses SystemVersionCheck: http://homepage.mac.com/chris_campbell/blog/SystemVersionCheck.html

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Reply from suspended user)
WIll this do anything for keyboard users
(Anonymous)
2006-07-27 10:02 pm UTC (link)
Hi,

I just want to use the keyboard int the Mail.app to select.

Actually, i would like to have a dedicated key/sequence that performs what an option-click selection does. (it would be nice if it were something like the Space bar.)

Would this help in any way for us keyboard users?

Thanks

Russ

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: WIll this do anything for keyboard users
[info]devnevyn
2006-07-28 02:24 pm UTC (link)
You mean, Windows-style selection, with a dotted selection caret/border? I guess that would be theoretically possible, but not entirely trivial...

(And I guess you mean command-click, not option-click?)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: WIll this do anything for keyboard users
(Anonymous)
2006-08-01 08:30 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I mean't command-click.

So this isn't trivial? Can you tell me if the option-click sequence could be caught/sent within an Applescript, i.e. could this be circumvented in some Applescript code?

Thanks

Russ

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: WIll this do anything for keyboard users
[info]devnevyn
2006-08-01 08:32 pm UTC (link)
No.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2007-02-12 01:31 am UTC (link)
Thank you!! That's fantastic. Now hopefully I can find some Finder alternative this will work with...

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]dorottyaxewim
2008-07-17 02:47 am UTC (link)
Now , I know you are a busy guy counting all of that loot that you are making with all these products but can you please find some time to update the PHP code on these free scripts.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Reply from suspended user)

(Reply from suspended user)
Most of the world thinks Bush sucks
(Anonymous)
2007-02-19 04:55 am UTC (link)
Bush goes ballistic about other countries being evil and dangerous, because they have weapons of mass destruction. But, he insists on building up even a more deadly supply of nuclear arms right here in the US. What do you think? How does that work in a democracy again? How does being more threatening make us more likeable?Isn't
the country with the most weapons the biggest threat to the rest of the world? When one country is the biggest threat to the rest of the world, isn't that likely to be the most hated country?
Are we safer today than we were before?
The more people that the government puts in jails, the safer we are told to think we are. The real terrorists are wherever they are, but they aren't living in a country with bars on the windows. We are.

(Reply to this)

Online Now
(Anonymous)
2007-05-23 04:56 am UTC (link)
Hello
Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to visit this site. I actually fit in this category much more than you can know.
Bye







(Reply to this) (Thread)

(Reply from suspended user)

(Reply from suspended user)

Create an Account
Forgot your login?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…