General Guidelines
Explicit Selection and Deselection
With the Keyboard
The user positions the active control indicator on the desired object and presses the Select key. The selection state of the entire object changes: If the object is not selected, it is selected now; if it is selected, it is now deselected (for information on the Select key, please refer to the "Technical notes").
With the Mouse
The user positions the mouse pointer on an object and presses the mouse button. The selection state of the entire object then changes (see Technical Notes).
For more detailed information, please refer to
Select/Deselect (Function).Automatic Selection
Sometimes it is more efficient if the the object is selected when the user positions the cursor on it. With character-specific user interfaces, the selection is indicated merely by the cursor position. On graphical user interfaces, the mouse-based automatic selection also has to be linked with the display of the selection state (see Technical Notes).
With the Keyboard
The user positions the cursor on the required object. The object is thereby selected. (Note: Until the selection is displayed, the object is selected merely by the position of the cursor. The user can now directly perform an action on an object (by choosing a menu option or pressing the function key or
ENTER ).With the Mouse
The user positions the pointer on an object and presses the mouse button. The object is thereby selected. The user can now directly perform an action on the selected object (by choosing a menu option or pressing the function key or
ENTER ), or select further objects, if multiple selection is possible.
Automatic mouse selection is identical to explicit mouse selection.
Priority between the Principles
Explicit selection is the basic selection method. Explicit selection must always be supported for both the keyboard
and the mouse. Explicit selection can be replaced by automatic selection, if appropriate.If an object has already been selected and the cursor is on another object of the same table structure, the action initiated by the user is only performed on the selected object. This means that cursor-based automatic selection in a table structure is only possible, if the user has not explicitly selected an object.
If the user positions the mouse pointer on an explicitly selected object and presses the mouse button, the object in question is deselected and not automatically selected. If two table structures are available on a template, however, you can use automatic selection in the second table structure, although explicit selection was performed in the first structure. The developer has to define if the action the user initiates applies to all of the selected objects or only to one. The developer must decide how the action is to be implemented and name the action correspondingly.
Indicating Selection
Selected objects have to be visually distinguishable from non-selected objects. In the R/3 System, selected objects currently must have the attribute "highlighted".
Temporary regulation: As long as selection with a single mouse click is not supported locally, you can position the active control indicator to indicate single selection or automatic selection.
In future, you will be able to use the "selected" attribute for program-driven selection. This allows to indicate an object as selected at least after a host interrupt. The specific appearance of the selection state will be determined locally by the GUI server.
Positioning the Cursor
If only the table structure is displayed on a screen, or if it is the dominant element of the screen to be processed, the system positions the cursor automatically on the first object in the table structure when the screen is first displayed.
If you have branched from a table structure to the details of a line and then return to the table structure, the cursor is positioned on the object of which you have last viewed the details.