Cannot tab out of certain textboxes on the web. Help?

July 8, 2009 10:49 PM

Why is it that certain textboxes on the web (Friendfeed, in this case) cannot be tabbed out of?

In both Safari & Firefox on Mac OS X, I can use the Tab key to move the cursor into the textbox on this page, but I cannot use the Tab key to move the cursor out of the textbox.

What's the difference between that textbox and the ones on Google or Metafilter or most other sites? Why can't I tab out of it? Is there a way to fix this problem?

posted by kidbritish to computers & internet (4 comments total)

They're using JavaScript to capture your tab keystroke and onBlur, (which is the action of leaving a field), refocusing you into that field. It's not great from a usability standpoint because it's confusing, but it's definitely conscious--they're using it to allow you to navigate through any auto-complete results that their little autocomplete thing provides. (Which appear to show only when logged in.)

So, it's not a "problem" in that it's by design. You can turn off JavaScript, but many, many large swaths of the internet will cease to work for you.
posted by disillusioned at 11:12 PM on July 8 [1 favorite]

A browser user script via something like Greasemonkey could prevent this from happening so it might be worth searching to see if someone has created that.
posted by XMLicious at 6:00 AM on July 9

You might also try installing NoScript and failing to whitelist any sites whose scripting annoys you.
posted by flabdablet at 8:25 AM on July 9

Thank you very much!

I'll look into Greasemonkey and NoScript.
posted by kidbritish at 7:00 AM on July 22