>In the general case, I absolutely agree.
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>In this particular case, I disagree. Applying the general case would just be cumbersome.
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>BTW -- the behavior I am using, which is that the entire entry be selected when you click on the field -- cannot be that surprising or frustrating to users. I am mimicking the behavior in the address bar in both IE and FireFox. Click on it once, the entire field is selected. Click again to position the cursor. I assume this was chosen because most of the time users want to replace the entire contents of the field, which is exactly what I want to achieve for my users as well.
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100% agree with you here. Windows may have standards and guidelines but that does not mean that you shouldn't break them when it makes sense to do so. This reminds me of another thread a while back about using flashing text in a UI. In some situations it makes sens e to do it - like when the plane is about to stall and nose dive. I'd want all sorts of flashing text (and very loud buzzers too along with someone slapping me in the face) if I was the pilot.