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Tab Order and other UI Questions

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  • #348876 Reply

    Pauldivaniii
    Member

    We have a multipage application. One of the multipage MOBI files has 4 tabs on it. When we switch to the main input tab and are filling in text field data and then tab to the “next” field the system doesn’t necessarily tab to the next control in the list order. It is especially bad at tabbing from a text field into a drop down field right after it. We also have a case where we tab off certain text fields on other pages and it switches to the dropdown on the first page.

    How do I control the tab order of the fields so it makes sense to my users?

    Also, what does the “Bounce Effect” property on the scroll panel do? I currently have it unchecked because it seems to improve the scrolling functionality on the iPhone but it would be nice to know what it actually does.

    Thanks

    #348903 Reply

    support-michael
    Keymaster

    >How do I control the tab order of the fields

    Tab order is defined by widget ordering in the outline view.
    See attachment tab-ordering.png

    >what does the “Bounce Effect” property on the scroll panel do?

    When a panel is scrolled to the end of its upper or lower bound, the bounce effect simulates momentum where the panel content extends beyond its bounds slightly and then snaps the content back into the panel. Some users prefer the experience as it is not as abrupt has having a scroller just stop when it reaches its limit.

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    #348913 Reply

    Pauldivaniii
    Member

    So, my list of widgets is in the order that I want them and I can move through all the text type fields on the page. What I need to be able to do is have the ability to tab from a text field into a dropdown field that is next in the list. This is not happening for me and it makes the application hard to use because of this.

    So how do we set things up so that things tab from text fields to dropdown then back to the next text field?

    #349040 Reply

    Pauldivaniii
    Member

    Okay, this is becoming a big issue for me. I added a method that sets the tabIndex property of each of the fields in the form and in the simulator I can tab from text fields into the correct combo box control on the form. When I go to the iPhone itself and I fill in a textbox and then tab to the next control, when the next control is a combo box, it skips the combo box and lands at the next textbox. So what happens is after all the textboxes have been tabbed through the system then goes back and starts tabbing through the combo boxes.

    The next problem: I have a tabbed form on two pages and if I keep tabbing through the combo box fields it tabs to combo box fields on the next tab in the form. Logically one would want the tab action to put the field with focus back at the top of the current tab page. It would not necessarily be bad except it doesn’t change the display so the application is on the tab page the current input control is on. So I am able to set data into a combo box control that is not currently visible.

    #349064 Reply

    support-michael
    Keymaster

    Giving this a look. I have an idea why you are seeing this odd cross-page tab-focus issue. The combo is a simulated widget that has a hidden <input> backing it. I suspect tab order is whacked around the hidden input element. Will be discussing this and the general tab issue with the dev team.

    #349081 Reply

    Pauldivaniii
    Member

    Thank you for getting on this. This is really important for our application to work correctly.

    By the way, my expectation for tabbing on controls on one of the tab pages would be that, as you press the “>” symbol on the text or dropdown input block the system would tab to the next control on that tab page. When it reaches the last field on the page the next press of “>” would take me to the first control on that tab page. Conversely if I am pressing the “<” it would do the reverse tabbing from the first to the last control.

    #349487 Reply

    Pauldivaniii
    Member

    OK so the enclosed project demonstrates all the issues I need to have working in our application. These happen in both the iPhone and Android versions. I have included all of the iPhone images but no Android in order to get the size under 1 meg. I tested this on the iPhone

    1: If you bring up the application and select the ID tab (page) and start entering data from the top (you only need to enter one character or number in each field) and use the “>” button on the touch key pad to move to each field you will end up on the Zipcode field. When you tab off this field instead of moving to the State dropdown it tabs to the Person Type dropdown on the Overview tab.
    2: So now that you have all the fields filled in on the ID tab, try scrolling back up to the top. You can actually scroll down about the same amount as you want to scroll up but unless you bring the touch pad again by selecting a text field and use the back “<” button to tab back up the form until you get to the top, you can’t scroll the form back up to the top.
    3: If you switch to the Features tab you can enter all the text fields but, again, when you tab off the Hair Style field instead of landing on the Gender dropdown you are taken back to the Person Type dropdown on the Overview tab.

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