Author citation's pop-up window selection not selected

dwain0wilder
In filling out the data on a new website item, typing in the author's first and last name will generate an auto-fill pop-up menu of previous citations. Selecting one of the menu items (previously cited author's last or first name) by tabbing does not result in its capture and use. Instead, one must mouse click the selection also (or instead).

I haven't seen this behavior in other Mac interfaces and suspect it's a bug. Anyone else experiencing this? Is it a bug or a "feature?"

Dwain Wilder
  • dstillman
    Hit Return to select the author, and the name field you're in will remain selected, allowing you to Tab to other fields.
  • dwain0wilder
    edited July 9, 2009
    I don't understand your reply, and it seems you didn't understand my post. I'll try to be more clear:

    After I've created a new item from a website page, I want to enter the author's name in the box provided. I select the box and begin entering in the Last Name field. If the auto-complete feature finds a match it pops up a window showing possible matches. I can use the keyboard up and down arrows to select (highlight) a match. However, when I use the tab key to move to the First Name field, the selection for the Last Name field has not be captured, and all that remains there is the portion I manually typed before the auto-fill popped up.

    In other words, auto-fill is not completing its task, in at least the Last Name and First Name fields. In order to get auto-fill to complete, I have to not only select the suggested name (highlight using the arrow keys) -- I also then have to move the mouse to the selection and click.

    This process violates the Apple human interface protocol, I believe. Other auto-fill processes will accept the selected (highlighted) entry without the additional step of requiring a mouse click.

    I'm running Zotero from a PPC Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; using Firefox/3.0.11
  • dwain0wilder
    Thanks, Dan. Now I got it. Still, it's not standard Human Interface design. Hope they fix it so selection of a pop-up item works like it does in every other program. </grump>
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