TABINDEX Attribute | tabIndex Property

Sets or retrieves the index that defines the tab order for the object.

Syntax

HTML	<ELEMENT TABINDEX = iIndex... >
Scripting	object.tabIndex [ = iIndex ]

Possible Values

iIndex

Integer that specifies or receives the tab index. 0 Default.

The property is read/write. The property has a default value of 0.

Remarks

For Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.01 or above, the attribute may be set to any value in the valid range of -32767 to 32767.

The tabIndex value determines the tab order as follows:

1. Objects with a positive tabIndex are selected in increasing iIndex order and in source order to resolve duplicates.
2. Objects with an tabIndex of zero are selected in source order.
3. Objects with a negative tabIndex are omitted from the tabbing order.

Elements can become part of the accessibility hierarchy if the TABINDEX attribute is set as follows.

• For Internet Explorer 5, set the TABINDEX attribute to a positive value.
• For Internet Explorer 5.01 and later, set the TABINDEX attribute to any value.

Content of elements with a closing tag can have focus by default, but are not tab stops. As of Internet Explorer 5, you can set the tabIndex property to a valid positive integer to force the content to have a tab stop.

An element can have focus if the tabIndex property is set to any valid negative or positive integer.

The following elements can have focus and are tab stops by default: a, BODY, button, frame, iframe, img, input, isIndex, object, select, textArea.

The following elements can have focus by default but are not tab stops. These elements can be set as tab stops by setting the tabIndex property to a positive integer. applet, div, frameSet, span, table, td.

Setting the tHead and tFoot elements to participate in the tab order will not cause the focus rectangle to display when either receives focus.

Elements that receive focus can fire the onblur and onfocus events as of Internet Explorer 4.0, and the onkeydown, onkeypress, and onkeyup events as of Internet Explorer 5.

Examples

This example uses the tabIndex property to specify the tab order for three text fields. In addition, the Submit button is removed by specifying a negative value.

<INPUT TYPE="text" TABINDEX="1">
<INPUT TYPE="text" >
<INPUT TYPE="text" TABINDEX="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit" TABINDEX="-1">

This feature requires Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. Click the following icon to install the latest version. Then reload this page to view the sample.

This example uses the tabIndex property to assign a tab order to an unordered list. To cycle through the list's tab order, the user presses the TAB key. Since the list items can have focus, the focus rectangle surrounds each item the user selects.

<UL>
<LI>Item 1 (no tab)</LI>
<LI>Item 2 (no tab)</LI>
<LI>Item 3 (no tab)</LI>
</UL>
<UL>
<LI TABINDEX="1">Tab Item 1</LI>
<LI TABINDEX="2">Tab Item 2</LI>
<LI TABINDEX="3">Tab Item 3</LI>
<LI TABINDEX="4">Tab Item 4</LI>
<LI TABINDEX="5">Tab Item 5</LI>
</UL>

This feature requires Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 or later. Click the following icon to install the latest version. Then reload this page to view the sample.

Standards Information

This property is defined in HTML 4.0  and is defined in World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 .

Applies To

A, ACRONYM, ADDRESS, APPLET, AREA, B, BDO, BIG, BLOCKQUOTE, BODY, BUTTON, CAPTION, CENTER, CITE, CUSTOM, DD, DEL, DFN, DIR, DIV, DL, DT, EM, FIELDSET, FONT, FORM, FRAME, FRAMESET, hn, HR, I, IFRAME, IMG, INPUT type=button, INPUT type=checkbox, INPUT type=file, INPUT type=image, INPUT type=password, INPUT type=radio, INPUT type=reset, INPUT type=submit, INPUT type=text, INS, ISINDEX, KBD, LABEL, LEGEND, LI, LISTING, MARQUEE, MENU, OBJECT, OL, P, PLAINTEXT, PRE, Q, RT, RUBY, S, SAMP, SELECT, SMALL, SPAN, STRIKE, STRONG, SUB, SUP, TABLE, TBODY, TD, TEXTAREA, TFOOT, TH, THEAD, TR, TT, U, UL, VAR, XMP