select-on-multiple-characters

Arguments: item-list

Returns the value of the select-on-multiple-characters property of an item-list (that is a single-item-list or a multi-item-list) control. The value may be specified at creation time by passing the :select-on-multiple-characters initarg to make-instance, or any time later by calling (setf select-on-multiple-characters).

This item-list property provides an alternate way to select a value in an item-list with the keyboard, where the user can type the first few characters of the value to select rather than the first character only. The value may be nil or true.

If the value is nil, which is the default, then an item-list has the usual keyboard behavior where typing a character will always move to the next value in the list that begins with that character. If there are many values that begin with the same character, then the only way to select some of those values is to type that first character many times.

If the value is true, then the user can type additional characters beyond the first one in the string to be selected. As each additional character is typed, the first value that matches all characters that have been typed so far will be selected.

The associated property select-on-multiple-characters-time-limit specifies how many milliseconds must elapse after a keystroke for the substring that's being typed to be reset. To search for a different string just after another search, the user must wait that amount of time before typing a new sequence of characters.

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Documentation for Allegro CL version 8.2. This page is new in the 8.2 release.
Created 2010.1.21.