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| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 12:41 #60026 | |
jc92
3701 posts |
first of all, I feel silly for not having mentioned this over a year ago when I first noticed it. ampersands (&  give an output of _ when used on a timetable description, e.g. Elephant_castle rather than elephant & castle.is there any particular reason for this as + doesn't look right; elephant + Castle. "We don't stop camborne wednesdays" Log in to reply |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 13:08 #60027 | |
TimTamToe
664 posts |
" said:first of all, I feel silly for not having mentioned this over a year ago when I first noticed it.type it as && and it will show as Elephant & Castle in the timetable description (although it will show as Elephant && Castle on the F2) Gareth Log in to reply The following users said thank you: jc92, maxand |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 13:09 #60028 | |
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jc92
3701 posts |
thanks Gareth! I'm still curious as to what causes that behaviour though... "We don't stop camborne wednesdays" Log in to reply |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 13:11 #60029 | |
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Muzer
718 posts |
I know why it's happening. Normally in Windows applications, & represents a hotkey, I believe it's called - so "File" in most applications is represented internally as "&File" (because pressing Alt+F opens the file menu) and rendered as "File" in some circumstances. Windows is doing this to the SimSig timetable, assuming the & marks the hotkey - so "Elephant & Castle" is turning into "Elephant _Castle". I can't remember exactly how it works (I'm not a Windows programmer), but someone either needs to escape the ampersands or turn off this feature for that text area.
Last edited: 04/05/2014 at 13:12 by Muzer Log in to reply The following user said thank you: TimTamToe |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 13:38 #60032 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
In programming, certain characters are reserved by the programming language, i.e., have a special meaning within the code compared with their normal (literal) meaning. For example, if you create a button for the screen which has a title and also a hotkey, the language may require you to prefix that hotkey with an ampersand (&). For example, if you have a button labelled "OK" and want to trigger it by pressing Alt+K, the language might insist that you code its title not as "OK" but "O&K". The button does not display the ampersand in its title. What if you want the ampersand (or any other reserved character such as "<" to be part of the title? The language reserves another character as an escape character, i.e., use it to escape its special use and display it as a literal character. In this instance, "&" is not just a reserved character but also the escape character.Thus, to display the reserved character ">" you would type it as "&>". To display the reserved character "&" you would type it as "&&". "Elephant & Castle" becomes "Elephant && Castle". Reserved and escape characters vary from language to language but the ampersand is a popular choice of escape character. Last edited: 04/05/2014 at 13:42 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 16:02 #60037 | |
Peter Bennet
5419 posts 
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Developers used to have to code apostrophes as '' to get a ' to appear. That seems to have been resolved as I've had to go back and delete one in more current builds. Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 16:07 #60038 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
This has been a feature of Windows for over 20 years I think! (incidentally, Max, it's not a language feature. It's an API feature. Very different concepts) In Windows Forms development there's a Control.ShowKeyboardCues property that I assume turns this on and off (I've never had to fiddle with it). Whether it's exposed in Delphi or not , I couldn't say. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 19:12 #60044 | |
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Finger
220 posts |
Indeed Forest Pines, well over 20 years! Quoting the relevant MSDN page: Quote: I believe that in Delphi, you would just design the dialogs using the IDE and there would just be a checkbox for turning this bit on (which you should do for controls displaying a basically user-provided text, you don't want that to mess up with keyboard navigation). Although I'm not a Delphi programmer either. BTW Control.ShowKeyboardCues is something different - that only controls (or indicates) whether the shortcuts are shown - ie. they will still be there (and respond to Alt+key etc.), just not underlined. In the .NET world, to display the ampersands as-is, you should look at the Label.UseMnemonic property Last edited: 04/05/2014 at 19:23 by Finger Log in to reply The following user said thank you: Forest Pines |
| Ampersands Not supported on timetable description 04/05/2014 at 21:37 #60049 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
" said:Bah! Well, as I said, I've never tried it myself! Log in to reply |