Hello,

I have several buttons in a row and I would like one of the to be the
default so that the Enter key will invoke it. The user can tab over to
the other buttons to press Enter too.

Normally, there is a slight visual cue to the default button. I tried
"-default active", "-activebackground/-activeforeground", and several
others.

How do I achieve this?

saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have several buttons in a row and I would like one of the to be the
> default so that the Enter key will invoke it. The user can tab over to
> the other buttons to press Enter too.
>
> Normally, there is a slight visual cue to the default button. I tried
> "-default active", "-activebackground/-activeforeground", and several
> others.
>
> How do I achieve this?

If you want a key to invoke it, then you probably need to shift focus
to the button you want to be the default. Look up the 'focus' command.

But the default Tk bindings invoke the focused button using space, not
Enter, so you might also need to add a binding to the Enter key.

Look up the default Tk bindings for buttons and see how Tk does the
space bar binding, you can copy that one and connect it to Enter.

On 10/31/2022 9:57 PM, Rich wrote:
>
> If you want a key to invoke it, then you probably need to shift focus
> to the button you want to be the default. Look up the 'focus' command.
>
> But the default Tk bindings invoke the focused button using space, not
> Enter, so you might also need to add a binding to the Enter key.
>

My mistake: I should have said space not Enter.

> Look up the default Tk bindings for buttons and see how Tk does the
> space bar binding, you can copy that one and connect it to Enter.

My question was not about the behavior which works just fine. Rather my
question was that on my buttons, there is no visual indication as to
which one would be invoked if I hit the space bar. [focus] on the frame
or the any of buttons themselves doesn't seem to provide any visual clue.

On 10/31/2022 9:57 PM, Rich wrote:
>
> Look up the default Tk bindings for buttons and see how Tk does the
> space bar binding, you can copy that one and connect it to Enter.

tk_dialog provides the visual clue I am talking about but [info body] on
it does not return anything.

# look at the yes button
package req Tk
tk_dialog .foo "The Title" "Do you want to say yes?" \
questhead 0 " Yes " " No " " I'm not sure "

On 10/31/2022 9:57 PM, Rich wrote:
>
> Look up the default Tk bindings for buttons and see how Tk does the
> space bar binding, you can copy that one and connect it to Enter.

[info body] does return something to study. Thanks!

saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/31/2022 9:57 PM, Rich wrote:
>>
>> If you want a key to invoke it, then you probably need to shift focus
>> to the button you want to be the default. Look up the 'focus' command.
>>
>> But the default Tk bindings invoke the focused button using space, not
>> Enter, so you might also need to add a binding to the Enter key.
>>
>
> My mistake: I should have said space not Enter.
>
>> Look up the default Tk bindings for buttons and see how Tk does the
>> space bar binding, you can copy that one and connect it to Enter.
>
> My question was not about the behavior which works just fine. Rather my
> question was that on my buttons, there is no visual indication as to
> which one would be invoked if I hit the space bar. [focus] on the frame
> or the any of buttons themselves doesn't seem to provide any visual clue.

X11/Linux/8.6.11:

$ rlwrap wish
% foreach i {1 2 3 4 5} { button .b$i -text .b$i ; pack .b$i -side left }
% focus .b4

When I hover over the window (I have Fvwm2 set for 'focus follows
mouse' mode) button .b4 has a darker border (and if I hit space while
the window is focused, button 4 is pressed).

See https://postimg.cc/Js4HD3VV

On 10/31/2022 11:29 PM, Rich wrote:
>
> X11/Linux/8.6.11:
>
> $ rlwrap wish
> % foreach i {1 2 3 4 5} { button .b$i -text .b$i ; pack .b$i -side left }
> % focus .b4
>
> When I hover over the window (I have Fvwm2 set for 'focus follows
> mouse' mode) button .b4 has a darker border (and if I hit space while
> the window is focused, button 4 is pressed).
>
> See https://postimg.cc/Js4HD3VV
>

Thank you very much for the follow up. I reviewed the implementation of
tk_dialog and found out that the trick was to include [tkwait
visibility] right before doing any [focus] commands on the buttons.
Along with "-default active" option. Then the visual appearance
properly indicates which button is the default. Haven't tested it on Linux.