Legacy Document

Inside Macintosh: Text /

Chapter 2 - TextEdit / TextEdit Reference

Routines / Setting and Getting an Edit Record's Text and Character Attribute Information

TEKey

The TEKey procedure replaces the selection range in the text of the specified edit record with the input character and positions the insertion point just past the inserted character.

PROCEDURE TEKey (key: Char; hTE: TEHandle); 

key

The input character.

hTE

A handle to the edit record in whose text the character is to be entered.

DESCRIPTION

If the selection range is an insertion point, TEKey inserts the character. (Two-byte characters are passed one byte at a time.) If the key parameter contains a backspace character, the selection range or the character immediately before the insertion point is deleted. When the primary line direction is right-to-left, the character to the right of the insertion point is deleted. When the primary line direction is left-to-right, the character to the left of the insertion point is deleted.

When the user deletes text up to the beginning of a set of character attributes, TEKey saves the attributes in the null scrap's style scrap record. The attributes are saved temporarily to be applied to characters inserted after the deletion. As soon as the user clicks in another area of the text, TEKey removes the attributes. TEKey redraws the text as necessary.

Call TEKey every time the Event Manager function WaitNextEvent reports a keyboard event that your application determines should be handled by TextEdit.

Because TEKey inserts every character passed in the key parameter, your application must filter all characters which aren't actual text, such as keys typed in conjunction with the Command key.

SEE ALSO

For a description of the WaitNextEvent function, see the chapter "Event Manager" in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials.