Re: widget woes (input fields)

On Fri, Jun  5, 2026 at 19:58 (+0200), Hans Hagen via ntg-context wrote:

> On 5/25/2026 5:13 PM, Jim via ntg-context wrote:
>> Hi all,

>> I have attached a minimal non-working example .tex file and the resulting
>> PDF.

>> If I type something in the text input line, and/or click the check box,
>> when I print the file (from a variety of web browsers and versions of
>> Acrobat reader on Linux and windows) those show up in the printout (or the
>> "print to file" file).

>> However, if I select a radio button, while on screen the button is visibly
>> selected, but in the printout (or "print to file" file) the button is not
>> selected.

>> I understand (possibly incorrectly) that these widgets are using PDF
>> features which are a bit out toward the edge of the PDF galaxy, but in case
>> it is a "me" problem I come to the list, cap in hand.

>> Can anyone tell me how I can fix my example so that a selected radio
>> button prints out visibly selected?

>> [[
>> This PDF causes my "evince" program to dump core.  Without the buttons
>> evince is somewhat happier, in that it doesn't dump core.  I will wildly
>> guess that these problem are somehow related.
>> ]]

>> (In case you are wondering... I created a fourth button because I don't
>> want any visible button to be selected when the document is opened, and
>> other methods I tried failed in various ways, depending on the program used
>> to view the PDF.)

> I'm in the middle of something else (more metafunish)

I'll hope that is "fun with metafun" as opposed to "sort of like fun, but
not exactly".

> so didn't follow this thread but normally Pablo comments on it

I believe Pablo has been silent on this particular topic.  Unless JP was
pinch-hitting for him (JP did offer some insights, but, sadly, not a
solution).

> ... widgets are a bit of a pain (ended up in the pdf spec before
> supported, bugs that became features - esp defaults - parent/kid issues
> and differences between viewers, appearance streams, etc).  The same for
> some annotations that basicaly got dropped. It has always been about
> adapting to observations.

As you may have noticed, Ulrike followed up with some analysis of the PDF
internals, which may help to get ConTeXt's implementation onto the straight
and narrow.  I poked around at the ConTeXt implementation code for a bit,
but decided that I didn't know enough about what goes where and who talks
to who and what should be what to attempt a fix.  :-(

                                Jim


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