tab order on a user control

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob Cummings
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B

Bob Cummings

Greetings

I have googled this to no avail, maybe someone here can help. I have a
user control that has several radio buttons and text boxes. I place 5
of these user controls on a windows form. I have set the tab order on
the user control and then I set the tab order on the windows form. For
some reason I only tab from user control to user control. Is there any
way to tab all the way through my user control before proceeding to the
next user control.

Cheers and thanks

Bob
 
Bob,

I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're saying.

Pressing the Tab key moves the focus through your user controls depending on
your tab order numbers.

Are you talking about tabbing through different tab pages on a dialog? If
so, the focus is either in a tab page itself, in which case you can navigate
through the controls on that page, or in a tab control, in which case you
can navigate through the tab pages that currently exist. If you wish to tab
through from the last control on one tab page, to the first control on the
next tab page, then you need to instatiate and write the Focus Leave event
for that control... when the event fires, you can check whether it was
because someone tabbed off that control, and then activate the next tab
page, and set the focus to the control you wish.

Good luck,
Dan.
 
Bob,
Is one of your radio buttons selected?

Using VB.NET 2003 under Windows XP Pro: If I create a UserControl with 2
TextBox controls & 3 Radio Button controls and place multiple of these
UserControls on a form, if there is no radio button checked (on each
UserControl) the radio buttons are not part of the tab order, however if I
select (check) a radio button, then it is included in the tab order.

Note the same thing happens with 2 textbox controls & 3 radio button
controls directly on the form.

This does feel like a bug, I will see what I can find out.

Hope this helps
Jay
 
Jay

You hit it on the head. I am a bit baffled that I did not think to test
that. I wanted to force the user to choose between the two choices the
radio buttons offer. There really is not a default radio button so I
make sure they are unselected; forcing the user to think about which
choice they need to make.

At this point it is only a quick and dirty utility for me to make up
test files for my work, so it is not a big deal. However, if I decide
to share it with my co-workers, I want to make it as "user proof" as
possible.

Thanks for your time

Bob
 
Does a radio control have to belong to a group?

I.E, if you have three radio buttons for one option, that would be class as
one control?

It's not a check box where it's on or off for one option, but more one
selection of two or more options.

I would say this could be interpreted as "normal" behaviour. Although I do
recall the VC++ 6.0 apps I wrote didn't do it this way.
 
Jay

You hit it on the head. I am a bit baffled that I did not think to test
that. I wanted to force the user to choose between the two choices the
radio buttons offer. There really is not a default radio button so I
make sure they are unselected; forcing the user to think about which
choice they need to make.

At this point it is only a quick and dirty utility for me to make up
test files for my work, so it is not a big deal. However, if I decide
to share it with my co-workers, I want to make it as "user proof" as
possible.

Thanks for your time

Bob
 
Bob,
Daniel reminded me what the "problem" is. :-)

By default the TabStop property follows the Checked property. Normally the
Checked property is False, so the TabStop property is also False.

When I change the Checked property it implicitly changes the TabStop
property.

If you set the TabStop property on the first radio button control to True,
tabbing will stop on that control when you tab. It however will also select
that control.

Hope this helps
Jay
 
Radio buttons are grouped at the ContainerControl level. All raido buttons
placed on a ContainerControl (Form, Panel, GroupBox) are considered to be in
a group and only 1 can be selected at a time.

Why have radio buttons that do not belong to the group?

To fix the tabbing issue, set the TabStop property to true or set the
default radio button to checked.

James Hicks
 
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