Focusing a Select Box

R

rwilkerson

Registered
I'm a recent convert and now that I've gotten past (well, almost) the constant oooo's and aaahhh's, there are one or two things that annoy me. Or, more likely the case, one or two things I'm doing wrong and the result is annoying me. These things are all small (quite) and generally so unobtrusive that I haven't gotten around to asking about them and can't always remember them long enough to ask how to change them.

One is on my mind now, however, so I'm here to ask. In a web form, I typically tab through the fields. I love the mac's ability to be intelligent about what I'm typing once i've put the focus on a selectbox, but I can't seem to set that focus using the tab key. As I tab through the form, the selectbox is simply skipped.

Can I change this behavior? If it matters, I'm a Firefox user.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Rob Wilkerson
 
Apple seems to be more rodent driven than keyboard driven. Some believe Steve Jogs bows down to a giant Mouse idol before commencing his daily tasks. There are so many times where you just want to just "hop" over with a tab that is done so effortlessly in Windows, only to be forced to "click" your way over wasting time as you hop needlessly from keyboard to mouse to keyboard.

You may find the conrol of Focus (System Preferences, Keyboard & Mouse, Keyboard Shortcuts, Keyboard Navigation, then see the different Focus options in that area) might help you. Yes its stupid to have to use a specific shortcut to go to a specific area when a simple Tab would have sufficed, but you're in a virus free world of Apple and there are some downsides.

How about not being able to do the equivalent of Alt+F to get to File or Alt+F+? to get somewhere else instantly on the File drop down menu or any other menu. Yes there are View options in some programs like Finder and Pathfinder that use Command+J, but why not have a universal keyboard shortcut that works on ALL programs that have a View in their Menu bar. No - in OS X you have to use the mouse. This happens all the time and drives Windows users crazy. Expecially when those keyboard shortcuts AREN'T being used.

The only answer is to get myriads of little programs that do it for you. Such a needless hassle. And Apple wonders why more people don't switch! Its like test driving a car and realizing things like the gas and break pedals are operating differently. It serves no purpose except to further isolate them in a sub 5% market share.

Imagine how many Windows users would be impressed by the stability and virus/worm/adware/spyware/trojan free internet freedom of OS X if they didn't have to relearn all their shortcuts and habits when they first tried it! Imagine in System Preferencese if they had a Windows Skin, with a START button, and the same navigation that Windows uses. Imagine a Windows Explorer clone. How about being able to collapse a column when you're 50 items down by hitting the left arrow instead of having to use the mouse to click it.

You've made a good choice - but it ain't no perfect world. For legal reasons or pride reasons, Apple is going to be Apple. All hail Steve.
 
I'm not 100% sure this will apply to Firefox, since it uses many non-standard interface elements, but there's a system-wide preference for this behavior in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts. You can set tab to cycle through text boxes and lists, or all controls. It does seem odd that the selectbox isn't included under the category of "text boxes and lists", though.

By the way, I know it as the "combo box", but I think we're talking about the same thing. You mean the combination menu/text field kind of thing, right?
 
I thought he meant the tick-box. Well, those little square boxes that you can tick on or off... (multiple selection fields vs. radio buttons)
 
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