[webkit-dev] Overtype mode in WebKit for editable content?

[Ryosuke Niwa]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:58 PM, Peter Kasting <pkasting at google.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:21 PM, Ryosuke Niwa <rniwa at webkit.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Peter Kasting <pkasting at google.com>wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Ryosuke Niwa <rniwa at webkit.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is it expected that overtype works on Windows or on Linux? e.g. If
>>>> "Edit" and "RichEdit" window classes both support this feature natively on
>>>> Windows (which I bet they do), then the answer is yes.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The non-rich edit control on Windows (i.e. Notepad) does not support
>>> overtype mode.  The rich edit control (Wordpad) does support it.  MS Word
>>> also uses a rich edit control, and goes further by displaying an explicit
>>> "normal vs. overtype" indicator in its UI.
>>>
>>
>> I see. We already have a notion of editable vs. richly editable so we can
>> enable this feature only inside a richly editable area.
>>
>>  I'm not necessarily opposed to plumbing support for overtype mode, but
>>> I suspect it may not make sense for all text input controls, e.g.
>>> single-line controls; and even if we support it, we may want some mechanism
>>> to show the user what mode they're in.
>>>
>>
>> We should match whatever the platform norm is.
>>
>
> Well, that's the thing.  On Windows there isn't really a platform norm.
>  Even a distinction like "editable versus richly editable" is not really a
> user-level concept in Windows, it's more of an implementation distinction,
> and there definitely is no obvious pattern for which applications or text
> fields will support overtype mode, or whether there's some sort of visible
> indicator of it.
>

Of course, each application can implement overtype in "Edit" window class
and manually disable it in "RichEdit" window class but I don't think that's
an interesting fact since that's a customization.  An application doesn't
even have to use either window class to implement a "text field"; e.g.
Microsoft Word.

But that doesn't mean there is no platform norm. Just like un-customized
NSTextView establishes what's norm on Mac, un-customized "Edit" and
"RichText" establish what's norm on Windows to a certain extent.

- R. Niwa
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/attachments/20130311/43d1a268/attachment.html>