Tabbing order

[fjcunninghamjr]

Hi,

Is there a way for me to stop the tabbing order or remove a field from the tabbing order on a text field I've created. I would prefer certain fields, even though I created them, not be in the tabbing order.

Frank

[Former Community Member]

If you are trying to do this programmatically then you can set the traverse property of the object. This can be attained by using this syntax:



objectName.resolveNode("traversal.#traverse").ref = "fieldname";



Yes I know this is ugly but it will be improving in a future release.



Note that this will only work if you have set a tabbing order (and the traversal node gets added to your fields. You can see this by looking at the XML source of your form.



All fields have a tab stop so to remove the field from having a tab stop then you woudl have to change the field to Read Only ..... then it will be excluded from tab stops.

[fjcunninghamjr]

I can see where changing the field attribute to 'read only' removes the field from the tab stop but it also does not let me enter text if need be. I would like to keep the field available but not be a tab stop. Can this be done.

Frank

[Former Community Member]

maybe writting a simple java script ('setFocus' or something) for the 'exit' event of the field (the one in front of your field in the tabbing order) ?

[Former Community Member]

That would work but I could still click on the field. I do not think you will be able to remove it as a tab stop unless you make it read only. You could set the traverse property to be "" but that will simply move it to the end of the tab cycle. You can affect where it is in the cycle but you cannot remove it.

[Jono_Moore]

There was a script posted in this thread that might help:<br />(Is there a way to link to a specific message in a thread in these forums?)<br /><br />It involves setting up a script on the enter event that skips to another field.<br />https://forum.adobe.com/webx?7@@.3bba9934/16<br /><br />tgsoft - 12:28am Sep 3, 07 PST (#13 of 18) Edited: 03-Sep-2007 at 12:28am<br /><br />Hi<br /><br />A way could be to create an enter event on the field that you want to skip, and then set focus to the field you want to jump to.<br /><br />On the field you want to skip<br />1) find the enter event in the event dropDown<br />2) make sure javascript code is selected<br />3) type xfa.host.setFocus( <field_name> );<br /> in code window you can hold down CTRL and click the other field, and the reference will be inserted, eg.<br /><br />xfa.host.setFocus( xfa.resolveNode("MY_FORM.P1.fieldName").somExpression );<br /><br />This will set focuas to other field, when they enter the field you want to skip.<br /><br />Hope it will help<br />/Thomas G<br />Jyske Bank, Denmark

[Nemuri13]

If you have Livecycle ES you should be able to shift+click on the tab that you want to be removed from the tabbing order.

[fjcunninghamjr]

I have Livecycle Designer 8. and when I shift-click for the tabbing that starts the first tab. Is there a difference between Lifecycle Designer and Lifecycle ES?

Frank

[Former Community Member]

The base product is the same .... they are named differently because of packaging (one comes in the Acrobat box and the other comes in the LiveCycle box).

[fjcunninghamjr]

If I Shift-Click its starts the first tab then clicking each field numbers that field in order as the next tab. I would like to remove a field from the tab order. Can that be done in Designer

Frank

[Former Community Member]

In the current implementation there is no way to omit a tab. This tabbing UI is being revised for a future release.

[Jono_Moore]

You can set the field to "protected" in the xml source ie:<br /><field name="myfield" y="89.86mm" x="170.26mm" w="34.263mm" h="4.623mm" access="protected"><br /><br />This will remove the field from the tabbing order. I don't know if it does anything else.

[Former Community Member]

A different question, but also about Tabbing order:

in the old PDF Form Designer, there's an option where you can set the default Tabbing order (top to down, left to right; or something like that) by one click. I don't recall seeing that feature in the XDP form designer... but I could be wrong. So, is there a way to set the default tabbing order by one click?



thanks

[Former Community Member]

I read in another post that you can edit the XML code to skip fields. I tried this and it's working perfectly. Of course you need to be careful in the code, but it's very doable. (Probably doesn't hurt to make a backup first :) )

Here's how I did it:

1. In the Hierarchy palette, click the field that goes to the wrong place when you tab out of it.
2. Click the XML Source tab. The opening field tag is highlighted.
3. Look for the following code after the highlighted tag, and before the closing field tag ...





...where [fieldname] is the name of the next field, the one it *shouldn't* go to when you tab out of the current field. Change this to the one it *should* go to. Depending on the context, you may be able to use just the fieldname, or you may need to use [formname]..[fieldname].

If the traversal tags aren't there, just copy and paste them from a node that has them, then edit the fieldname as needed. I've noticed LCD tends to put them right before closing field tag (though I've seen exceptions), so I've been doing the same. So far it's worked fine.

Hope that helps save someone the time I spent trying to figure out how to skip fields in tab order :)

Kathryn

P. S. I should add I'm still using LiveCycle 8. I don't think that will make a difference to those of you using ES, but someone please post here if it does.