On a page like MLO/W, repeatedly pressing [tab] will continuously go to
the next defined tabstop until it reaches the last one, then the first
one and so on. Repeatedly pressing [shift][tab] will travel around this
same cycle in the reverse direction. The number of stops in the cycle
depends on what's on your screen, what's expanded versus collapsed, etc.
On my screen at this moment it takes 34 clicks of the tab button to
travel from any one tabstop all the way around the cycle and back to the
starting point. The tab cycle's path through the task details sidebar on
the right of the screen is *not* top to bottom, there is a fair bit of
jumping around. (It's possible that for a new user the path would be top
to bottom but when you rearrange the sections within the sidebar that
could make the tab cycle more jumpy)
When the focus is on the currently selected task in the last list, the
task's background is blue. When I hit tab, the currently selected task
remains the currently selected task but its background turns gray. In my
case the next tab stop is the text filter in the view details sidebar on
the left. You can tell that the focus is on the text filter because a
blinking cursor appears in the text filter box.
One of the tab stops is the "click to add dependencies" text in the
Dependencies section of the task details. There is no visual clue
(colour, cursor, etc) to tell you that the focus has tabbed to this
text. The only indicator is that the [menu] key on the keyboard raises a
context menu with only three choices starting with add dependency. (note
that right-clicking this same text raises the same context menu but also
highlights the text. Bug? maybe, but certainly too small to bother
reporting.) Another way to tell is to hit tab once to shift the focus
into the Delay field in the dependencies section. When the focus is in
the Delay field the text box border turns from gray to blue, the text in
the box gets a blue background, and a blinking cursor appears in the
box. At this point, [shift][tab] will return the focus to the "click to
add" text, you can hit the [menu] key and get on with task selection.
So, one way to do this is to ensure that the dependency section of task
details is expanded, start with the focus on the task that's to be made
dependent, and hit tab repeatedly until the dependency delay field gets
highlighted as above, hit [shift][tab] to move the focus back to "click
to add", hit [menu] and off you go. Problem: that is a large number of
tab taps (17 for me). You could make a keyboard macro called "17tabs"
but it might be 16 or 18 or something else depending on what tabstops
are currently onscreen. So you want a way to make the clickstream
shorter and more predictable.
On my system, starting with the focus on the selected task, if I {hit
[alt][6] to collapse the dependencies section - this step is necessary
only if the dependencies section is currently visible and expanded, and
then} hit [alt][6] to expand the dependencies section and carefully do
not tap or click anything else, the selected task has a grey background
and the focus is (invisibly) on "click to add". From your description,
the focus is still on the selected task. If you did not type anything or
touch a mouse, it is hard for me to imagine how this is possible.
However different computers work differently, so here is a workaround.
Hit [alt][6] a bunch of times and see if the selected task background
ever turns gray. If not, report this as a bug.
If you can get the selected task background to gray, then try to figure
out where the focus has gone. as you rapidly hit [alt][6] look for some
field that is changing colour, a cursor that appears, etc. When you find
it, see how many taps on [tab] or [shift][tab] will bring you to the
dependencies delay field. Remember the number of taps minus one, because
that many taps on [tab] or [shift][tab] will bring your focus to "click
to add" after using [alt][6].
-Dwight
> <
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/e9feba57-a21a-4c99-ba02-3c4e5f737216%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> > <mailto:
mylifeorganiz...@googlegroups.com>.
>
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/271b8cb5-b5e2-424b-93fb-21fc3df91d3f%40googlegroups.com
> <
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/271b8cb5-b5e2-424b-93fb-21fc3df91d3f%40googlegroups.com>
>
> >
> <
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/271b8cb5-b5e2-424b-93fb-21fc3df91d3f%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/271b8cb5-b5e2-424b-93fb-21fc3df91d3f%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> <mailto:
mylifeorganiz...@googlegroups.com>.
>
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/ae0f2430-af9d-41cb-8bec-fe1e66d43a83%40googlegroups.com
> <
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/ae0f2430-af9d-41cb-8bec-fe1e66d43a83%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.