A quick overview of the user experience provided by Widgets elements, describing how they react to user input.

Keyboard Focus

If the auto_focus attribute has been set to true, the control will get focus as soon as the mouse is over it. If the attribute has been set to 'false', the user will have to click on the active area of the control to grant it focus and be able to use the keyboard for this control.

Keys

All control widgets support the following keys (note that for audio plug-ins, some of them are caught by the host application and are not available.

Common Behavior

Key

Action

Up Arrow

Small increment of the position (up or right)

Down Arrow

Small increment of the position (down or left)

Left Arrow

Same as Down Arrow

Right Arrow

Same as Up Arrow

Page Up

Large increment of the position (up or right)

Page Down

Large decrement of the position (down or left)

+

Small increment of the value of the control

-

Small decrement of the value of the control

d

Set to default value (same as mouse right click)

e

Open the fine edit popup window.

SHIFT

Fine tuning modifier. When the key is pushed, the control enters the "fine tuning" mode. The user has more precise control over the parameter.

Buttons

Key

Action

Enter

Pushes the button

Mouse

The mouse has an influence over a control only when it is over its active part, defined by its mouse_mask (default is the entire bounding rectangle of the control).

When over the active area of a control, the mouse will do the following:

Mouse Event

Action

Left Click

Acquire focus and start dragging or push (button)

Alt key + Click

Set the value to default (since v1.9.1, the Alt modifier can also be changed to Control instead).

Left Double Click

Acquire focus and (since 1.2.1) launch the fine tuning edit window (except for button):

Right Click

Set the value to default

Mouse Wheel

Increment or decrement the position

Mouse Drag

Change the control position depending on mouse movement (except button)