tabIndex

Summary

Represents the tab order of an element.

Applies to

## Examples

This example uses the tabIndex property to specify the tab order for three text fields. In addition, the Submit button is removed by specifying a negative value.

<input type="text" tabindex="1">
<input type="text">
<input type="text" tabindex="2">
<input type="submit" tabindex="-1">

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This example uses the tabIndex property to assign a tab order to an unordered list. To cycle through the list’s tab order, the user presses the TAB key. Since the list items can have focus, the focus rectangle surrounds each item the user selects.

<ul>
    <li>Item 1 (no tab)</li>
    <li>Item 2 (no tab)</li>
    <li>Item 3 (no tab)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
    <li tabindex="1">Tab Item 1</li>
    <li tabindex="2">Tab Item 2</li>
    <li tabindex="3">Tab Item 3</li>
    <li tabindex="4">Tab Item 4</li>
    <li tabindex="5">Tab Item 5</li>
</ul>

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Notes

Remarks

The tabIndex value determines the tab order as follows:

Objects with a positive tabIndex are selected in increasing p order and in source order to resolve duplicates.
Objects with an tabIndex of zero are selected in source order.
Objects with a negative tabIndex are omitted from the tabbing order.

An element can have focus if the tabIndex property is set to any valid negative or positive integer. The following elements can have focus and are tab stops by default: a, BODY, button, frame, iframe, img, input, isIndex, object, select, textArea. The following elements can have focus by default but are not tab stops. These elements can be set as tab stops by setting the tabIndex property to a positive integer. applet, div, frameSet, span, table, td. Setting the tHead and tFoot elements to participate in the tab order will not cause the focus rectangle to display when either receives focus. Elements can become part of the accessibility hierarchy if the TABINDEX attribute is set as follows:

For Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 and later, set the TABINDEX attribute to any value.
For Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, set the TABINDEX attribute to a positive value.

For Internet Explorer 5.01 or above, the attribute may be set to any value in the valid range of -32767 to 32767. Content of elements with a closing tag can have focus by default, but are not tab stops. As of Internet Explorer 5, you can set the tabIndex property to a valid positive integer to force the content to have a tab stop. Elements that receive focus can fire the onblur and onfocus events as of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, and the onkeydown, onkeypress, and onkeyup events as of Internet Explorer 5.

Syntax

Attributions

Microsoft Developer Network: [Windows Internet Explorer API reference Article]