Getting Started


Setting tab order in the Investment application

Our user interface is basically complete. You have one more behavior to define for the Window parts: the tabbing order.

The tabbing order specifies how the input focus moves from part to part when the user presses the Tab key (this is referred to as the tab group order). You can further specify the order in which the input focus moves to parts within a tab group when the user presses the arrow keys (this is referred to as the traversal order).

The tabbing order is initially determined by the order in which you add the parts. If you select Set tabbing > Default Ordering from the pop-up menu of a composite part, such as the Window part, the tabbing order of all the subparts is set from left to right, top to bottom within that composite part.

If the default tabbing order doesn't meet your needs, you can further customize the tabbing order by using the tab tags.

To show the tabbing order of a composite part, such as a Window part, select Set tabbing > Show tab tags from the part's pop-up menu. This shows tab tags next to all the subparts included in the tabbing order. Showing the tab tags for the MainWindowView part's Window part looks as follows:
InvestmentApp MainWindow with tab stops

There are three types of tab tags:

Tab group
These tab tags are yellow and contain a single number that identifies the part's position within the tabbing order. Parts that have a tab group set have this type of tab tag.

Traversal
These tab tags are yellow and contain two numbers separated by a colon. The first number identifies the part's position within the tabbing order of tab group tags, and the second number identifies the part's position within its tab group. Parts that have only traversal set have this type of tab tag.

Composite
These tab tags are blue and contain a single number that identifies the composite part's position within the tabbing order. Composite parts have this type of tab tag.

To change the tabbing order of a part, simply find the tab tag labelled with the position you want for the part and then drag it to the part. For example, if you want a List part to be second in the tabbing order and a Text part has the tab tag labelled 2, simply drag the Text part's tab tag to the List part.

When you are finished changing the tabbing order, select Set tabbing > Hide tab tags from the composite part's pop-up menu


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