XHTML: Form elements with 'tabindex' attribute skipped from tabbing order

Stanimir Stamenkov

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Jul 15, 2009, 4:46:29 AM7/15/09

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I'll attach two sample identical documents: an HTML and an XHTML
one. Both have two form elements with a 'tabindex' attribute set
and two which don't specify a 'tabindex'. I've observed the
elements with 'tabindex' set get skipped from the tabbing navigation
after the first iteration when viewing the XHTML document. The HTML
one works just fine. Is this a known issue?

--
Stanimir

tabindex-test.html

tabindex-test.xhtml

Martin Honnen

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Jul 15, 2009, 7:46:35 AM7/15/09

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In the XHTML sample there are four input elements, all have a tabindex
attribute. One of the input elements is outside of a form element, the
other three are inside of a form element. For me with Firefox 3.0
(Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11)
Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11) the input elements inside of the form
are skipped from tab navigation after the first iteration. Whether that
is a known issue I don't know.

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Martin Honnen
http://msmvps.com/blogs/martin_honnen/

Stanimir Stamenkov

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Jul 15, 2009, 2:41:05 PM7/15/09

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Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:46:35 +0200, /Martin Honnen/:

> Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
>
>> I'll attach two sample identical documents: an HTML and an XHTML one.
>> Both have two form elements with a 'tabindex' attribute set and two
>> which don't specify a 'tabindex'. I've observed the elements with
>> 'tabindex' set get skipped from the tabbing navigation after the first
>> iteration when viewing the XHTML document. The HTML one works just
>> fine. Is this a known issue?
>
> In the XHTML sample there are four input elements, all have a tabindex
> attribute. One of the input elements is outside of a form element, the
> other three are inside of a form element.

I've attached slightly modified XHTML sample from the intended. It
still shows another view of the problem as you've noticed (below).
If you remove the 'tabindex=4' and 'tabindex=3' attributes from it
to match the HTML sample you should observe the exact behavior I've
described. Sorry for the inconvenience.

> For me with Firefox 3.0
> (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11)
> Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11) the input elements inside of the form
> are skipped from tab navigation after the first iteration. Whether that
> is a known issue I don't know.

FWIW, I'm experiencing this using SeaMonkey 1.1.6, 1.1.7 and Firefox
3.5.

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Stanimir

Martin Honnen

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Jul 16, 2009, 9:27:04 AM7/16/09

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Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:

>> For me with Firefox 3.0 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1;
>> en-US; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11) the input
>> elements inside of the form are skipped from tab navigation after the
>> first iteration. Whether that is a known issue I don't know.
>
> FWIW, I'm experiencing this using SeaMonkey 1.1.6, 1.1.7 and Firefox 3.5.

Seems to be a long known and reported issue:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=226361

I am not sure what to do to get that bug some attention.

Stanimir Stamenkov

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Jul 19, 2009, 2:34:49 PM7/19/09

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Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:27:04 +0200, /Martin Honnen/:

> Seems to be a long known and reported issue:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=226361
>
> I am not sure what to do to get that bug some attention.

Thanks for the pointer. I'll probably attach my forms example to
the issue but I'm not sure this will make it get more attention.

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Stanimir

Stanimir Stamenkov

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Jul 26, 2009, 4:33:14 PM7/26/09

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Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:27:04 +0200, /Martin Honnen/:

> Seems to be a long known and reported issue:

> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=226361
>
> I am not sure what to do to get that bug some attention.

Per comment #9 - appears to be fixed on trunk. Tried it out with
today's Windows nightly and it works o.k., now.

--
Stanimir