[Bug] Specifying a ParentComponent for a PopupMenu causes it to lose keyboardFocus on item selection

General JUCE discussion
1

Juce 7.0.8. Mac.

I have recently taken to making my MainComponent the parent of all PopupMenus (to keep them inside the mainComponent), so this has become an issue that I just noticed.

It occurs anywhere you use a PopupMenu, but I’m focusing on ComboBoxes here. I’m calling it a bug, but at the very least it’s an annoying inconsistency, especially if you were to mix using a parentComponent and not using a parentComponent for comboBoxes within the same project.

With a parentComponent, the ComboBox will lose focus on item selection.

Here is a simple test project:

ComboBoxFocusTest.zip (11.2 KB)

ComboBox 1 has no parent specified for the popup. ComboBox 2 has a parentComponent (the mainComponent) specified by assigning it a custom LookAndFeel:

class MainComponent  : public juce::Component
{
public:
    //==============================================================================
    MainComponent();
    ~MainComponent() override;

    //==============================================================================
    void paint (juce::Graphics&) override;
    void resized() override;

private:
    //==============================================================================
    // Your private member variables go here...
    juce::ComboBox cbox1 {"Box1"};
    juce::ComboBox cbox2 {"Box2"};
    
    class CustomLAF : public juce::LookAndFeel_V4
    {
    public:
        CustomLAF(MainComponent* main)
        : mainComponent(main) {}
        
        juce::Component* getParentComponentForMenuOptions (const juce::PopupMenu::Options& options)
        {
            return mainComponent;
        }
    private:
        MainComponent* mainComponent;
    };
    CustomLAF customLAF {this};

    JUCE_DECLARE_NON_COPYABLE_WITH_LEAK_DETECTOR (MainComponent)
};

//==============================================================================
MainComponent::MainComponent()
{
    setWantsKeyboardFocus(true);
    
    juce::StringArray menuList = {"Item 1", "Item 2", "Item 3" };
    
    addAndMakeVisible(cbox1);
    cbox1.addItemList (menuList, 1);
    cbox1.setSelectedItemIndex(0, juce::NotificationType::dontSendNotification);
    cbox1.setHasFocusOutline(true);
    
    addAndMakeVisible(cbox2);
    cbox2.addItemList (menuList, 1);
    cbox2.setSelectedItemIndex(0, juce::NotificationType::dontSendNotification);
    cbox2.setHasFocusOutline(true);
    cbox2.setLookAndFeel(&customLAF);
    
    setSize (600, 400);
}

So ComboBox1 is focused by me clicking on it. It gets a focus outline. The menu opens. Without a parentComponent, selecting an item from the menu closes the menu and leaves the ComboBox focused (as it should be):

cbox1
cbox1860×466 34.2 KB

You could then use the keyboard (for example) to make selections.

But with a parentComponent specified for the popup in ComboBox2, selecting an item with the mouse (as soon as you click down) focuses on the parentComponent and the ComboBox loses its focus.

cbox2
cbox2860×466 22 KB

I tracked the issue down to these lines at the end of
Component::grabKeyboardFocusInternal (FocusChangeType cause, bool canTryParent, FocusChangeDirection direction)

    // if no children want it and we're allowed to try our parent comp,
    // then pass up to parent, which will try our siblings.
    if (canTryParent && parentComponent != nullptr)
        parentComponent->grabKeyboardFocusInternal (cause, true, direction);

The problem is that canTryParent is always passed in as true from up the chain. So if the popupMenu has a parent, it always ends up focusing back on the parentComponent of it, i.e. the MainComponent.

1 Like
2

Thank you for reporting. A fix has been released on develop

1 Like