Page header and focus behaviour

[Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho]

We have been discussing on IRC about the focus path on page header-> page-contents.

Some apps require a fine tuning on the focus path for the header buttons and contents. This is not possible today since we do not have access to all header objects (only actions).

Another problem is that the page first receive focus on your contents and after the header. This can be annoying if the focus starts on the header because the focus go to another page before enter on page contents (check img0.png). would be nice to allow apps to choose which is the desired focus paths between pages and headers. (something like img1.png)

And in the end would be nice to have a AdaptativePageLayout method to allow user to access a page based on index or something else in case of the user want to move focus to a different page in the stack.

[Tim Peeters (tpeeters)]

I agree about the focus order within a page (not sure which page should have focus first though). But I think this will be valid for all apps, so we don't need to make it configurable, just fix the current focus order.

Can we get feedback from design on this?

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Yes, for each panel in a window, focus should go through that panel’s header, then to the panel body (so you can select something in it if it’s a list, or else just scroll through it), then to the panel footer if there is one (such as the “Write a message” field). That should happen without any effort by the app developer.

So as long as there are no messages in the message pane, focus should flow as shown in Renato’s “expected focus path” illustration, and the only thing the app developer should need to specify is that the “To:” field is focused by default (otherwise the thread list would be). Once there are messages in the message pane (for example, you’ve entered a recipient who has previous messages), the message pane should join the focus cycle.