Tab Order

[hung pham]

I have a layout that contains many enough fields that I have to scroll down to the bottom of the screen to fill in data for the last field. Let’s call this field as “aLast”

And the problem is that after I select and fill the data (from drop down list) to the aLast, the cursor jumps to another field that has the smallest tab # and located at the top of screen. I have to scroll down again to look at the data I just filled in for aLast.

How do I make that the cursor should stay still in the bottom WITHOUT change the order of tab number?

My tab order go from left to right, and go down.

The fact is if the aLast field is an entry field, then it is OK, it still stay in aLast field unless I press the tab key, then it go to the field that has smallest tab number which is located at the top of screen.

Any advise

Thank you in advance.

Hung Pham

[Kurt Knippel]

Add one additional field, even if it not enterable (such as a calculation) or even make it invisible (text same color as background), but include it as the last item in the tab order.

This way you will stay at the bottom of the screen.

[hung pham]

Hi Kurt,

Thank you for your reply. I tried it, but it not work properly I think.

First I place a calculation field, and it does not matter I assign to it a last item of tab order number, FMP smart enough to recognize that it is not a editable field, so it skip to place the cursor in it, and jump to the top.

Second I tried to place a editable field, to make cursor tab into it,same color with background. I think this way will make the user confuse and wonder what is that field for? Because even they will not see the data because it is the same color as background, but they can the cursor blinking.

What do you think

Hung Pham

[hung pham]

Hi Kurt,

I think I found the way that works perfectly.

Let' assump that the tab # of aLast is 10.

What I did is that I replace one more field which is the SAME field with aLast, but I took drop down list from this new field and assign tab # 11 to it, they both same text color and size, and font type.

As you see: after select data from the drop down list for first aLast (tab #10), the cursor will jump and stay at the aLast that has tab #11 because I took the drop down list away. The user will never notice that.

What do you think?

Hung Pham

[Kurt Knippel]

Sounds like a great solution!