Text.value not updated when pasting using mouse

[sbmacdonald]

I have a Text widget, that will have a long uuid pasted into it. The "on_change" event is not fired if I right-click and paste the value. Below the Text widget I have a Button that relies on the value of the Text widget being set. Currently the only way to ensure the Text value is set, is for the user to press a navigation key (enter, tab, arrow), which seems to trigger the "on_change" event.

This is rather disappointing user experience, any thoughts ?

[jasongrout]

What browser, version, and operating system is this on?

[sbmacdonald]

Chrome & Firefox on Ubuntu 14.04, ipwidgets version 6.0.0

scott@rain:~$ pip freeze | grep widget
ipywidgets==6.0.0
widgetsnbextension==2.0.0

[sbmacdonald]

I am happy to generate an AWS hosted sample notebook if that helps.

I LOVE jupyter and ipywidgets!

[jasongrout]

Ah, looking at the code it looks like we explicitly look for key events:

ipywidgets/jupyter-js-widgets/src/widget_string.ts

Line 322 in d998e90

events(): {[e: string]: string} {

Perhaps we should instead listen for the input event: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events/input

[jasongrout]

Would you like to work on this? PRs are definitely welcome!

[sbmacdonald]

I am not a web developer, and I don't have very good understanding of web events. If It weren't for these widgets I would be lost. I am not adverse to helping out, but just not sure you want me mucking around in the code!

For me, (ideally) the value of the Text widget would be set/updated whenever focus is changed away from the Text widget. I would prefer not to have to register an observer to watch the Text value for changes. Ideally a right-click-paste, followed by a change in focus to my "run" button would be enough for the Text value to be set.

I really appreciate you having a look at this issue.

[jasongrout]

I think with the input event, the change would actually happen immediately, without blurring the input.

We have two modes for the text widget - continuous updates (using keypress events) and non-continuous updates (again using keypress events, but listening for the enter key specifically). I think we should experiment with changing these two modes to using the input event and change event, respectively.

[maartenbreddels]

Another option would be to attach an event handler like Button click, so by default the value is always synced, but if you only want it on blur, you'd have to attach a event handler. I think that would be more flexible.

[sbmacdonald]

I guess what I'm suggesting is that mouse events should trigger the Text value to be set just like key events.

[maartenbreddels]

I understand, and I agree. But at the same time we may tackle how to deal with different use cases for when you want other behaviour. Update while typeing, or only on losing focus or hitting enter.
The downside of what I suggest in my previous comment is that jslink cannot deal with events...

[sbmacdonald]

Sounds good. I can't say I understand the different options completely, if you think you have options to provide the additional functionality I would be happy with any solution. I recoginize this is probably considered an edge case, but it would certainly improve the usability of my notebooks, which are actually beign shared with many of our clients.

I have a visualization tool that requires users to enter a UUID, which is quite painful to type by hand, so cut-and-paste entry is typical. Currently I have to tell users to hit enter or tab before pressing the "run" button.

[jasongrout]

This is fixed in #1545.