Is this tab navigation and if so how?

Question

I am not sure if tab navigation is the right term, but here goes. As you know if you hit the tab button on your keyboard the focus of the element changes to the next element. So the first question is, is this called tab navigation or is tab navigation like moving from one tab to another changing the screen (two different web page one on each tab)? Second question is how do I control the flow of the the tab when it is moving, for instance I want it to move vertically to a certain point before it moves horizontally. I am not even sure how to tag this so if I tag something wrong please correct me.

If you want to move through fields in the page using tab key, you can use the `tabindex` attribute. The attribute can have value as 1, 2, 3 etc. You can see it in action [here](http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml5_global_tabindex). — Harry, Sep 12 '13 at 16:46
Looks like [the standard](http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/interact/forms.html#adef-tabindex) explains the tab flow most completely... — Teemu, Sep 12 '13 at 16:51

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 12 '13 at 16:48

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Any element in html has a tab index <element tabindex="number">. Hitting the tab will traverse the elements on your page. The navigation part of your question is answered -- as you concluded in the first of two alternatives for interpretation -- nicely here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbing_navigation

answered Sep 12 '13 at 16:48

mrtig

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traverse that's the word I should using to google not navigate – Jack Thor Sep 12 '13 at 16:54

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

First:

Both can and are called tab navigation. But the one referred to that way more, is the one you describe. Using the tab button to move from one element to the next.

Second:

Most of the time you shouldn't mess with the tab navigation. People see a form and expect the tab button to work a certain way, when it doesn't then they usually assume that tab is broken for your website. It's also very browser dependent which means head-aches galore when messing with it.

If you must have the tab work a certain way, then form elements have a tabindex attribute, and you can set this to a number. The tab should then follow the numbers, i.e. from 1 --> 2 --> 3.

More info can be found here.

I did not even want to mess with the tabbing index but my form moved thing vertically as oppose to horizontally so was wondering how to fix that to make people happy. Thanks — Jack Thor, Sep 12 '13 at 16:51

Is this tab navigation and if so how?

2 Answers2