Problem
What is the purpose of the HTML tabindex attribute?
Asked by sleep
Solution #1
tabindex is a global attribute that has two functions:
The second point, in my opinion, is even more crucial than the first. By default, just a few components (such as a> and form controls) are focusable. Developers frequently include JavaScript event handlers (such as ‘onclick’) on non-focusable elements (div>, span>, and so on), and making such components focusable allows your interface to respond not just to mouse events but also to keyboard events (e.g. ‘onkeypress’). Finally, use tabindex=”0″ on all such components if you don’t want to specify the order but only want to make your element focusable:
<div tabindex="0"></div>
Also, if you don’t want it to be focusable via the tab key then use tabindex=”-1″. For example, the below link will not be focused while using tab keys to traverse.
<a href="#" tabindex="-1">Tab key cannot reach here!</a>
Answered by Konstantin Smolyanin
Solution #2
The user will be taken through the form in the order 1, 2, and 3 as seen in the sample below when they press the tab button.
For example:
Name: <input name="name" tabindex="1" />
Age: <input name="age" tabindex="3" />
Email: <input name="email" tabindex="2" />
Answered by Robert
Solution #3
When users use the Tab key to move through a page, the tabindex is utilized to establish a series. The natural tabbing order is set to mirror the source order in the markup by default.
The tabindex advances upward from 0 or any positive whole number. The value 0 is frequently avoided because in former versions of Mozilla and Internet Explorer, the tabindex would begin at 1, progress to 2, and then to 0 and then 3. Tabindex has a maximum integer value of 32767. If two items have the same tabindex, the tabindex will reflect the markup’s source order. If the value is negative, the element will be removed from the tab index and will never be focused.
If you give an element a tabindex of -1, it will be removed and will never be focusable, but you can give it focus programmatically using element. focus().
The tabindex attribute will be ignored if it is specified with no value or an empty value.
If the disabled attribute is applied to a tabindex element, the element will be ignored.
If a tabindex is declared anywhere on the page, regardless of where it is in respect to the rest of the code (in the footer, content area, or anyplace else), the tab order will begin with the element that is expressly allocated the lowest tabindex value above 0. It will then cycle over the elements defined, returning to the beginning of the document and following the normal tab order only after the explicit tabindex items have been tabbed through.
Only the anchor, area, button, input, object, select, and textarea elements in the HTML4 spec allow the tabindex attribute. With accessibility in mind, the HTML5 spec allows all components to be allocated a tabindex.
—
<ul tabindex="-1">
<li tabindex="1"></li>
<li tabindex="2"></li>
<li tabindex="3"></li>
</ul>
is equivalent to
<ul tabindex="-1">
<li tabindex="1"></li>
<li tabindex="1"></li>
<li tabindex="1"></li>
</ul>
Because they are all assigned tabindex=”1,” they will still be sorted in the same sequence, with the first one being first and the final one being last. The situation is also the same.
<div>
<a></a>
<a></a>
<a></a>
</div>
because if the tabIndex is set by default, you don’t need to define it explicitly. By default, a div is not focusable; however, anchor tags are.
Answered by davidcondrey
Solution #4
Controlling the order of tabbing (moving the focus around the page by hitting the tab key).
Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.11.1
Answered by Tom
Solution #5
The order in which your keyboard focus moves between elements on the website is determined by the values you enter.
When you press tab for the first time, your pointer will travel to #foo, then #amazing, and finally #bar.
<input id="foo" tabindex="1" />
<input id="bar" tabindex="3" />
<input id="awesome" tabindex="2" />
If you haven’t set up any tab indexes, the keyboard focus will be drawn to the HTML tags on your page in the order they’re defined in the HTML text.
If you tab more than the number of times you set tabindexes for, the focus will be moved as if there were no tabindexes, that is, in the order in which the HTML tags appear.
Answered by Eldamir
Post is based on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4112289/what-is-the-html-tabindex-attribute