A couple more:

Dia: Allows leading/trailing spaces, they can be selected (there is no visual hint), they're included in the highlight/selected effect (no bbox to speak of).
SVG-edit: Allows leading/trailing spaces, they can be selected, they expand the "object area" (it's some kind of bbox, but doesn't appear as tightly defined as ours is).

I tested LibreOffice Draw (4.2.3rc3) as well and see no cursor change under any circumstances. The leading/trailing is not selectable, but if you click close enough to the object boundary it will select the object (so the area above, below, and to the side of the first/last space). A text object containing only spaces can be select by the same way, but with no visual hint, so you have to know where to click.

Cheers,
Josh


On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 2:04 PM, mathog <mathog@...1176...> wrote:
Other programs:

Powerpoint: cursor shape changes as it passes over leading and trailing spaces.  It allows text boxes containing nothing but spaces.

LibreOffice Draw 4.1.12: cursor shape changes as it passes over trailing spaces but it ignores leading spaces.  (Bizarre.)  It allows text boxes containing nothing but spaces but the cursor does not change shape as it passes over them.  These are selectable by dragging a rectangle out and around the text object.

scribus:  draws a text box with an outline that is always visible. Cursor shape does not change entering that box, or over visible or whitespace characters within it.


Regards,

David Mathog
mathog@...1176...
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech