[SOLVED] Tab Order Inop?
lazarus / 10-Designer

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WickedDum · 2013-11-14 21:34

I have 24 fields I want to be able to have the user tab through.  I
have attached the Tab Order.  When I tab thru, after City (7), I see
nothing; I hit Tab again and the cursor shows up in Country (10).  It
skips 8 and 9.

Also, I am skipping lbxClients (15).  In Object
Inspector->Properties->TabOrder it is (15) and TabStop is False.  It
works.  Is there a way I can remove it from the list and the property
field altogether?

Thanks!

< Steve >

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howardpc · 2013-11-14 23:54

TEdit has an AutoSelect property (which is True by default), so as you
tab among edits you see the edit field highlighted as you enter the
control, and the highlight goes as you leave the control by tabbing
elsewhere to select a different control.
TListBox has no AutoSelect property because unlike an edit which has
only a single text-entry field, a listbox has many items (unless it is
empty). How can it know which item to select when you enter it? So
tabbing to a listbox does not produce the same visual feedback of a
moving highlight.
If you want you can force the highlighting of any first item on entry
by adding an OnEnter event handler for a listbox something like
Code: [Select]procedure TForm1.lbExampleEnter(Sender: Tobject);
begin
  if lbExample.Count>0 then
   lbExample.ItemIndex:=0;
end;
You would need a corresponding OnExit handler to remove the focus
highlight when tabbing away from the listbox.

AFAIK You cannot remove focus-able controls from the taborder list. If
such a control's TabStop property is False it is given the highest
value possible, but it is actually meaningless since it has been taken
out of the tab order circuit anyway through the setting of the TabStop
property. It represents the TabOrder the control would immediately
show if its TabStop property were set back to True.

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WickedDum · 2013-11-15 07:17

Thanks!!

Appreciate the sample code.  I understand the need for the OnExit.

Any idea why it skipped over the ZipCode field when it left the
TListBox?

And... "AFAIK" means...?

< Steve >

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howardpc · 2013-11-15 08:09

Quote from: WickedDum on November 15, 2013, 08:17:04 amAny idea why it
skipped over the ZipCode field when it left the TListBox?
Presumably because either its TabStop property was False, or because
its Enabled property was False (which has the same effect on tabbing
as setting TabStop to False).

QuoteAnd... "AFAIK" means...?
As Far As I Know
For instance, setting a control's Visible property to False removes it
from view in the running program and obviously prevents you from
tabbing to it, yet it remains listed in the TabOrder dialog. This
dialog simply lists all existing focus-able controls, whatever their
visibility or behaviour might be. Its purpose is to allow easy
reassignment of TabOrder values to several controls at once. Their
actual behaviour-when-tabbed at runtime is controlled not only by
their TabOrder property, but by other properties too. Each control is
an instance of a complex class, and actual runtime behaviour is the
outcome of the interaction between many properties and attributes,
which may possibly conflict with or override each other. Lazarus gives
you the source, so you can always delve deeper to see how a certain
behaviour is programmed.

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WickedDum · 2013-11-15 16:43

Thanks!

Both TabStop and Enabled are set to true....  I'll highlight the first
item in the list to see if that helps.

Delve into the source?  Not at this stage!

Appreciate your help.

< Steve >