Strange behavior in dictionary search

Script Debugger Beta Testing
#1

Mark,

I noticed a possible point of confusion on the dictionary search field (figure 1) for both SD7-lite and SD7-full. When the dictionary window is topmost and F5 is hit with nothing even entered into the search field the dropdown menu appears. The menu has absolutely nothing to do with ScriptDebugger or AppleScript. As I type text and hit F5 again the dropdown comes up with equally useless suggestions. It seems likely some users might assume the menu items are related to something about AppleScript and get mixed up.

Dictionary%20search%20field
figure 1

This happens no matter what the “Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys” setting is set to in the “Keyboard” control panel. Checked or uncheck it is the same. See figure 2.

Checkbox
Figure 2

I am running Mac OS X Sierra 10.12.6. I’m not sure why this menu comes up. Nothing appeared in console while I was doing this.

Bill

#2

This is the standard system-wide autocompletion key. It works in any “cocoa” text field.
Also, it’s been here for a while. I just found this 2006 article on DaringFireball about it:

#3

It does not seem to be remappable in System Preferences though. I personally never use it because the app I use most with autocompletion is not a Cocoa app and has its own shortcut for autocompletion based on internal data (history, registered glossaries, etc.)

#4

Jean Christophe,

Thanks :slight_smile: I had no idea what that was.

This got me wondering if this could be used in ASObj-C. NSTextView has a methods for text completion:

  • complete:
  • completionsForPartialWordRange:indexOfSelectedItem:
  • insertCompletion:forPartialWordRange:movement:isFinal:
  • rangeForUserCompletion

The documentation lists F5 as the default key to enable it. After testing it would be interesting to try that out now that I know what it is.

Bill

1 Like
#5

Script Debugger relies on the default completions offered by Cocoa for the dictionary search field. I agree that this should be a list of possible terms from the dictionary. However, its a too late to get this into SD7. I’ve filed this as a feature request and we’ll look at it in the future.