Web dialogs stealing focus within my tool.

eneroth3 · 26 Apr 2014, 17:00

Hi all!

I'm using web dialogs for providing some settings for some of my tools. The problem is that the web dialogs when used take focus from the main Sketchup window so the shortcuts keys within my tool doesn't work until the main window is clicked.

I was thinking about making a javascript keypress event that sends key code to ruby where the onKeyDown method can be called. I just wondered if anyone has done something similar or know of some other solution to the same problem.

jolran · 26 Apr 2014, 17:24

Javascript keypress event works for me.. You would have the reversed problem when dialog does not have focus though. But that might be OK.
I suppose one could wrap some keypressevents in a tool class and send it to the dialog, but havent tried that.
Often one can "rethink" these more advanced events and replace them with a simple Icons/buttons.
It would make more sense to click on dialog (to get it's focus) for clicking an button, then clicking on the dialog and then press shift + c (or whatever).

jiminy-billy-bob · 26 Apr 2014, 19:03

@eneroth3 said:

I was thinking about making a javascript keypress event that sends key code to ruby where the onKeyDown method can be called. I just wondered if anyone has done something similar or know of some other solution to the same problem.

I wanted to do that myself, but never found a way to pass the keycode to ruby. Let me know if you manage to do it.

driven · 26 Apr 2014, 20:08

you could try wrapping this to see what comes back...
[web 100%,600:1rru8s83]http://unixpapa.com/js/testkey.html[/web:1rru8s83]

also both Jim and fredo have keystroke testers 'out there' I'll see if I can find the links or the scripts...
john

driven · 26 Apr 2014, 20:12

should also have mentioned that [ on mac at least ] you can blur()/focus() from you ruby...

Dan Rathbun · 27 Apr 2014, 01:35

We have long complained about this focusing issue, but the issue has not yet been addressed.
On PC it can be done using Windows System calls and the Win32API class.

Dan Rathbun · 27 Apr 2014, 01:38

BTW.. I think Fredo was playing with a way to draw toolbar or setting controls, directly onto the model viewport during a tool's active state.

driven · 27 Apr 2014, 01:46

@eneroth3 said:

... so the shortcuts keys within my tool doesn't work until the main window is clicked.

thinking out load...

why send the shortcut when you can send your tool an instruction directly?

john

jolran · 27 Apr 2014, 06:55

I fiddled a bit with this, but it activates the shiftkey after shift+c. Maybe it can be improved... Paste in ruby code editor or such. Only tried in Windows..
BTW I think it might be better to use onkeyup then onKeyDown since it fires so often..
Also combinations might be harder to track..

@dlg = UI;;WebDialog.new()
   @dlg.set_size(400,200)
   RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /(darwin)/ ? @dlg.show_modal() ; @dlg.show()
   
   def html()
      html =  %Q(
         <!DOCTYPE html>
         <html>
         <head>
            <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="charset=UTF-8" />
            <meta http-equiv="MSThemeCompatible" content="Yes" />
            <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
            <style>
           body { background-color;grey;}
           h1 { color;white; }
            </style>
         </head>
         <body>
         <h1>Press shift,ctrl, shift+c or other</h1>
            <script>
            
            function sendtoRuby(ki) {
               window.location.href = 'skp;keyspressed@'+ki;
            }
            
            window.onkeyup=function(e) {
               var kc = e.keyCode;
               if( kc === 16 &&! e.shiftKey ) {
                  return sendtoRuby("shift");
               } else if( kc === 17 &&! e.ctrltKey ) {
                  return sendtoRuby("ctrl");
               } else if( e.shiftKey && kc === 67 ) {
                  return sendtoRuby("shift+c")
               } else {
                  return sendtoRuby(kc);
               }
            }
            
            </script>
         </body>
         </html>
      )
      html
   end
 
   def testkey(pressed)
      puts pressed
   end
 
   @dlg.add_action_callback("keyspressed") {|d,params|
       testkey(params)
   }
 
   @dlg.set_html(html)

eneroth3 · 27 Apr 2014, 13:18

@driven said:

@eneroth3 said:

... so the shortcuts keys within my tool doesn't work until the main window is clicked.

thinking out load...

why send the shortcut when you can send your tool an instruction directly?

john

Then I have to make a separate list of what to do with what key. I haven't written any of this code yet but the idea was to have one javascript function for all my different tools that just sends the key code to onKeyDown which differs between the tools and and does different things with different keys.

@dan rathbun said:

BTW.. I think Fredo was playing with a way to draw toolbar or setting controls, directly onto the model viewport during a tool's active state.

I've thought about that but it would require me to recode a lot of stuff. Also some of the web dialogs are quite big so it's good to be able to move them around so they don't cover the part of the viewport where the user currently draws.

eneroth3 · 27 Apr 2014, 15:15

I've just written the code and it seems to work nicely.

External javascript file (loaded by all web dialogs:


function port_key(){
  //Sends the keycode from the event to a Ruby callback.
  //This can be used for web dialogs inside a custom tools to send key events to the tool to change its behavior even when the web dialog is focused.
  //Run "document.onkeyup=port_key;" to initialize. onkeyup is used to avoid overriding calls to onkeydown already in use in the dialog. onkeypress doesn't fire for modifier keys.
  e = window.event || e;
  keycode = e.keyCode || e.which
  
  //It might be wise to only proceed for certain keys here, e.g. modifier keys or whatever keys are used in the tool.
  
  window.location='skp;port_key@' + keycode;
}

In Dialog.show:


js = "document.onkeyup=port_key;"
@dialog.execute_script js

Dialog callback:


#Port key event to tool
@dialog.add_action_callback("port_key") { |_, callbacks|
  self.onKeyDown callbacks.to_i, false, 0, Sketchup.active_model.active_view#This tool doesn't use flags so it can just be set to 0
}

I haven't really bothered locking into the flags since my tools doesn't use them, just tab, alt, and arrow keys.

Here's a list of the constants representing key codes in SU and here's the key codes from the javascript events in different browser.

It's only tested on windows but the key codes seem to match quite well for most of the keys. My code might have some Mac bugs though, idk since I can't test it.

Dan Rathbun · 27 Apr 2014, 22:37

There is a difference between your code calling a key handling callback, and the SketchUp engine doing it.

The SketchUp engine bubbles the keyCode up to the application, (something that often causes the exit from a custom RubyTool.) The API does not have an "official" way to sen keystrokes to SketchUp, but there are some platform dependant ways. On PC, you use the Win32OLE class and sendKeys() method from Windows Scripting Host (WScript).

tt_su · 28 Apr 2014, 09:13

I've used the Win32 for this in the past:
https://bitbucket.org/thomthom/tt-library-2/src/9ff3a5f08604ed477eb4b17fd63612bfc42832dd/TT_Lib2/sketchup.rb?at=Version%202.9#cl-88

Never found a OSX solution though.

eneroth3 · 28 Apr 2014, 10:05

To make this script 140% complete you probably need to send those key events directly to the Sketchup main window as Dan says and also make the javascript function check that no form input is currently focused.

However this seems to solve my issue and the only thing you need to do in my plugin to be able to use all Sketchup shortcuts is to either click in the main window (just as before) or close the web dialog containing the tool settings which automatically activates the select tool.

Aerilius · 28 Apr 2014, 10:54

Would there be a way for SketchUp to modify WebDialogs to "continue bubbling up" from the document root to the SketchUp main window?

I've implemented something similar to jolran's method that sets a Tool class variable for the status of the ctrl, shift and alt keys (Select Entity tool in Ruby Console+).

tt_su · 28 Apr 2014, 10:59

@aerilius said:

Would there be a way for SketchUp to modify WebDialogs to "continue bubbling up" from the document root to the SketchUp main window?

That would be a great feature. I'd love to see some improvements to the Tool class and in particular the WebDialog class.

If people can flesh out use cases and scenarios that's be of great help to determine the shape of these improvements.

eneroth3 · 28 Apr 2014, 12:38

Sidenote: when using paint bucket tool and the main window is focused the mouse cursor changes wen pressing and releasing modifier keys as expected. When the material browser is focused the mouse cursor changes when pressing down a key BUT NOT when releasing it. However the mouse cursor updates as soon as you move the mouse so the tool seems to know that the modifier keys aren't hold down, it's just the cursor that doesn't update.

Tested in SU 2013 and 2014 on Windows7

jiminy-billy-bob · 28 Apr 2014, 17:51

@tt_su said:

If people can flesh out use cases and scenarios that's be of great help to determine the shape of these improvements.

In Layers Panel, I wanted to allow users to use their SU shortcuts even if my dialog was focused (Except the ones I trap).

Aerilius · 28 Apr 2014, 20:05

Scenario 1:
When a webdialog is designed to be used in parallel with the currently selected tool (any replacement for a native inspector dialog, like layers panel), not consistently workig shortcuts interupt the user's workflow.

Scenario 2:
When a webdialog is used as toolbar to launch a tool, the tool won't get modifier keys until you have clicked at least once into the drawing (and maybe you didn't want to do that click).

eneroth3 · 28 Apr 2014, 20:34

I've been thinking about an implementation. In some cases the developer might not want this so it shouldn't always be enabled (and it could break existing plugins). What about an extra argument for creating web dialogs that by default is false?

There could also be a check on the web side that prevents the key event from being sent to SU in case an input or textarea element is focused.

One scenario where the developer don't want to send the key events to Sketchup (except for the obvious one of writing in a form) could be custom shortcuts within the web dialog (save, reload etc).