Re^2: PM pages should have Tabindex attributes

As to using tabindex, I find tabindexes not implied by the semantics of the page or it's layout confusing and counterintuitive -- when I hit tab, I expect to go to the next link or form element.

In general, I'm in total agreement with this. However, there are situations where this, as a general rule, is not applicable. Given a form like:

Prompt 1:  [ -- default-prompt-1 -- ]  {link to help on Prompt 1}
Prompt 2:  [ -- default-prompt-2 -- ]  {link to help on Prompt 2}
Prompt 3:  [ -- default-prompt-3 -- ]  {link to help on Prompt 3}
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If the tabindex on the form controls was 'n', you'd possibly want to make the tabindex on the associated help links 'n-1'.

There are other situations like this. Perhaps you want to tab through all 'required' fields first and then through any 'optional' fields.

Regards,

PN5

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Re^3: PM pages should have Tabindex attributes by Corion (Patriarch) on Aug 08, 2004 at 12:19 UTC
At least for me, as a western left-to-right, top-to-down reader, your idea of having the help come before the input would be weird, as I expect the focus to advance in the same fashion I read, that is, left-to-right, top-to-down. Breaking that order for jumping between required versus optional fields is also disorienting - if the optional fields are less important, move them downwards on the page and don't play funky games with the tab order. The tabindex should only be used if funky CSS is used to rearrange the page layout.	[reply]

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Re^3: PM pages should have Tabindex attributes
by Corion (Patriarch) on Aug 08, 2004 at 12:19 UTC

At least for me, as a western left-to-right, top-to-down reader, your idea of having the help come before the input would be weird, as I expect the focus to advance in the same fashion I read, that is, left-to-right, top-to-down. Breaking that order for jumping between required versus optional fields is also disorienting - if the optional fields are less important, move them downwards on the page and don't play funky games with the tab order.

The tabindex should only be used if funky CSS is used to rearrange the page layout.

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