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When open new Query dialog in IDLE (e.g. "Open Module" dialog), move a focus on the Cancel button and press <Return> on keyboard, the OK button is invoked instead of Cancel.

While writing #27620 and adding a binding to Query for <Escape>, a few hours ago, I realized that this would be the case, that it could be considered a bug, and that the fix will be a 'return' function that looks at the focus before invoking [Ok] (the default) or [Cancel] (when it has the focus).
 def return_key(self, event):
 if self.focus_get() == self.button_cancel:
 self.cancel()
 else:
 self.ok()
appears to work. I will push tomorrow after writing a test. Something similar is needed for config dialog. I just tested the search dialog and it behaves the same as query does now. If one tabs enough to put the focus on close, <Return> does find anyway.
Do you agree that Esc should always cancel regardless of where the focus is? I would appreciate your input on #27620 as to the 'right' behavior we should aim at for the different dialogs.
While I think of it, the indication of ttk.Entry focus with the default Windows theme is a shift of the 1 pixel black border to a 1 pixel blue border. It is not obvious. I want to look as other Window's theme or possibly a custom style. Now a priority yet.

I made this a dependency of #27620.

I have wrote similar patch. There are many ways to fix this issue. Tk code for dialog widgets is more complex and general.

I expect that ESC should always cancel, and RETURN/ENTER should always accepts (OK or Save or whatever the "main" button is) regardless of where the focus is. If you want a keyboard shortcut to push the button with focus, use SPACE, not ENTER.

This is against the convention.

Side note that on Mac OS X, buttons normally don't get the focus, so that this isn't an issue. Well except that buttons are getting the focus here. :-) 
Also since we're reinventing the wheel, please note that alternative keyboard shortcuts (e.g. command-period) don't work, and there isn't a default button set for the dialog which there should be. 
Interestingly, you can change things in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts so that buttons can get the focus via tabbing through the interface. If this is enabled and you tab to the Cancel button and his Return, it should still be treated as if you hit the Okay button on Mac. Hitting space while focus is on the Cancel button does treat it as if you clicked on Cancel.

I am not trying to re-invent the wheel. I am trying to bring IDLE up to uniform standards. In particular, make all dialogs usable from the keyboard. The config dialog is the worst. See #27620, the master issue.
For a two button messagebox, I went back to 3.5.2, which still uses the commondialog box. It has the default button marked as such. <Return> always does the default action. <Escape> always cancels. <Tab> moves the focus, but does not affect the above. <Space> enters ' ' in text entry and 'clicks' buttons. So this is at least 'a' Windows standard, as well as 'a' Mac standard.
The search dialogs act the same. The space behavior built-in to the TK widgets, at least on Windows. I presume this is a class binding. The dialogs have no platform specific code, so they are also the defacto IDLE standard.
Serhiy, it is definitely a tk convention, and I presume more universal than that, that the 'default ring' always indicate what button/action is invoked by <Return>. If the default moved with the focus, the default ring should move also. I am not inclined to do that without a strong reason.
The button default ring is controlled by the 'default' option" 'active' = visible, 'normal' = possible, 'disabled' = not possible. (From the tk docs. The NMT reference is useless here.) I will add "default='active'" for the Ok button.
(Mark: "default=1", suggested on http://www.tkdocs.com/widgets/button.html, is a nasty bug. "_tkinter.TclError: bad default "1": must be normal, active, or disabled".)

I meant to direct the focus ring fix here instead #27620. To me, this issue is done, at least for now.

Terry, thanks for the TkDocs correction.
As you'll note from the attached dlgonmac.png, there's a bit of tweaking needed with regard to geometry management etc. to get the background right.
Now that ttk is ok (so to speak), would you be open to some patches that fix this up, a bit more akin to what you see in the 'query dialog' subsection if you scroll down a bit in http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/idle.html#idledialogs
Separately, would you be open to a patch changing things to use the "inline" error handling illustrated on the goto line dialog on that page (i.e. showing error message in query dialog in red vs. popping up an alert)?
Older code for that can be found here btw: https://github.com/roseman/idle/blob/master/querydialog.py 

In Tk widgets tk_dialog and tk_messageBox (corresponding Tkinter widgets dialog.Dialog and messagebox.Message) pressing Return invokes focused button. The comment in tk_dialog implementation:
 # 4. Create a binding for <Return> on the dialog if there is a
 # default button.
 # Convention also dictates that if the keyboard focus moves among the
 # the buttons that the <Return> binding affects the button with the focus.
I expected the same behavior in IDLE Query dialog. If this behavior considered outdated, I'm nice to close this issue.

Serhiy, the tk_dialog has been superseded by tk_messageBox, and does not reflect current platform standards. I just tried tk_messageBox on the Mac, which always activates the default button if you press 'return', even if another button has the focus. I expect Windows and X11 are different, and will check that out when I get a chance.

Background: For Open Module, the old commondialog did not have the asymmetrical drop shadow. That is an unintentional addition (from a frame?) and I don't like it. Perhaps we should use grid instead. Rows 0 and 1 for the initial label and entry, with columnspan 2, rows 8 and 9 for error message and buttons. This leaves room for insertion of path message, path entry, and browse button. Patch welcome.
A definite yes for error label in widget. I dislike the popup. Begone! Should a blank label reserve space or should it be inserted as needed, making box expand.

Serhiy: I believe Notepad, Wordpad, Libre Office Write behave as you describe. But there are differences in details. So I don't consider issue closed, but it is low priority to me.

Just to follow up, both Windows and Linux the 'correct' behaviour seems to be that space or return activates the button with the current focus. Mac behaves differently in that return key always activates default button even if focus is on another button (and normally on Mac, buttons don't get focus).
I'll put together a patch that cleans up the layout and does the error label in dialog thing.

I've attached query.patch, which does the cosmetic and layout changes, and adds a couple Mac-specific things. I've added the inline error message widget but don't use it yet (as this will involve changes to the subclasses and the tests, given errors will show up when the dialog is running, not after).
Given I'm a bit rusty at this, would appreciate if someone could check this out and make sure I did things correctly. :-)

The file has the correct format for review, applies cleanly, and tests pass. The relief is gone (easy). The buttons are no longer symmetrical; this looks 'wrong' to me. (My reaction might be different if the widget was much wider, so the buttons were clearly right-justified rather than looking like their placement had a bug.) This results from using 3 columns instead of 2. I want to try the latter. I will switch error messages to the widget, see what happens, and deal with needed test changes. I will post before committing so you can test on Mac first.

Thanks Terry! I'd be good if you want to put a width back on the buttons, but I'd suggest "width=6" rather than using 8 as it was before.

I changed showerror from widget to query function, added a second error label to Help Source, adjusted validation functions, and rewrote tests. I also made keypad enter work on all systems (it already works in Search and I use it often). I want to look at spacing in a separate pass.

Looks great Terry - thanks. Only nit is that test_click_help_source fails on Mac, courtesy a leading 'file://' added in the last few lines of path_ok

See #27714 for more on the test failure.

Actually, the query test failure is posted to #27380 

New changeset f0e86b60de5f by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue #27621: Put query response validation error messages in query box
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/f0e86b60de5f 

There is still Serhiy's original issue about moving <Return> default with focus, plus possible appearance changes.

#24812 specifically talks about Mac standards.