[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Q: virtual keyboard and *stealing* text selection

[From: Tomas Junnonen]

ext maemo-developers-bounces at maemo.org wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to determine how to get around a nagging bug associated 
> with virtual keyboard in IT2006:
> 
> I have TextBuffer/TextView widget with some text in it, and an action
> button to operate on a selected block of text.
> 
> When I select a text block, the virtual keyboard pops up and
> selection is still visible. But the second I press my action button
> and before button's signal_click event is delivered, the selection
> block is cleared (deselected) and text buffer claims no selection is
> made on the text!
> 
> Has anyone seen or dealt with this problem before? If so, is there
> any way to get around it?
> 
> any hints would be highly appreciated, -Vlad 

Unfortunately the UI specifications produced by Nokia and the default
GTK behavior do not always match, and this happens to be one such case.
The selection is being cleared intentionally, and I can't say I'm
particularly fond of this behavior either. I've asked our designers to
reconsider, so it is possible to change this in the future.

As for immediate workarounds, putting the action button inside a toolbar
will keep the selection from clearing, and also make the application
more "maemo-like". Alternatively, when the selection is made you could
save the bounds in your application and use those for the action,
optionally restoring the selection.

Regards,
Tomas