Tabbing problems in Firefox in Mac OS X
Recently I got a bug report from marketing (don’t all bug reports come from there? 
), about an unexpected problem in Firefox in Mac OS X. The end users had problems tabbing through the web page, and especially through forms. Since I, at the time, sat on a PC, I couldn’t test with my settings, although I knew I hadn’t seen the problem on my Mac at home.
Not resorting to the option of having the code riddled with tabindex attributes, since it didn’t seem like the best way to go, I instead did some online research to see if it was due to any setting in Firefox or something similar. The solution I found to the problem was somewhat unexpected. How to address this is that the end user have to turn on Full keyboard access > All controls in System Preferences for it to work as expected. Like this:
- Open System Preferences
- Go to Keyboard & Mouse
- Select All controls for Full keyboard access
The interesting thing to note here is that this behavior doesn’t occur in Safari, so it’s a Firefox-specific problem. I’m not sure why they’d implement it this way in the first place, either. Kind of hard to have a web site with support e-mails coming in, and the reply is that they have to change their system settings…
31 Comments
January 18th, 2007 at 14:17
After a bit of digging around in bugzilla it appears this is done on purpose for Firefox, even though Camino works fine.
More digging revealed that this can be changed quite easily.
Basically go to <code>about:config</code> and set/add <code>accessibility.tabfocus</code> to either:
3 to be able to tab to form controls or
7 to be able to tab to everything
And other values would limit/extend what gets tabbed to.
January 18th, 2007 at 14:39
Some more details about the specific values.
In Camino Preferences | Web Features there's a section:
<code>Tab selects text fields and:
[x] Form buttons, pop-up menus and lists
[ ] Links and linked images</code>
The default is the top checkbox being checked.
The values for <code>accessibility.tabfocus</code> match the following states of those text boxes:
1 – Neither checkboxes checked.
3 – Top checked: Only text fields and form controls
5 – Bottom checked: Only text fields and links and linked images
7 – Both checked: Text fields, form controls and links
January 19th, 2007 at 10:24
Kanashii,
Great digging! Good to know that it can be changed in Firefox, although I still can't understand why the default option would be the least accessible one to the end user.
July 29th, 2007 at 3:38
[...] 2 different solutions. I “googled” all sorts of combination of words until I discovered Robert’s Talk web blog. I was so happy there was someone else determined to find a solution to this horrible flaw [...]
September 6th, 2007 at 0:43
[...] Tabbing problems in Firefox in Mac OS X [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 21:26
nice article, thanks. For those who still use i.e.; Firefox is really faster.
January 17th, 2008 at 21:12
oh, my god, THANK YOU! This has been bugging me since I first started using my new MBPro last summer!
January 17th, 2008 at 22:51
Matt,
I'm happy it helped!
January 18th, 2008 at 8:18
[...] Tabbing problems in Firefox in Mac OS X – Robert’s talk – Web development and Internet trends How to fix the problem of not being about to tab into check boxes in Firefox on OS X (tags: firefox howto mac webdesign osx tab solution) [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 11:35
This has annoyed me about Firefox on the Mac for a long time. My mac user friends didn't even realize this problem. Your blog helped me solve it. Thanks!
February 6th, 2008 at 12:01
Joe,
Good that it helped you out!
April 28th, 2008 at 1:28
Robert, my good man. You came up on top of the google results for my search for this.
And you saved me much frustration. Thank you.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:33
Paul,
Great that it helped you out!
May 13th, 2008 at 13:22
This is great Robert (and fair play to Kanashii for finding the Firefox specific fix). It is a little troubling that this problem exists with Firefox however. I wonder how many people have just put it down to shoddy form implementation in Firefox and switched to something else?
It would be interesting to see if Firefox 3 can tab properly through forms on the Mac 'out-of-the-box' so to speak.
June 14th, 2008 at 20:16
Just tried this on FF3 RC3 and the about:config option isn't there.
June 14th, 2008 at 20:20
ignore me – forgot how to add items!
July 13th, 2008 at 0:37
Kanashii & Robert,
Great info!
Just started using my new MacBook a few weeks ago and this was Bugging me.
I set to 7 on Firefox, and navigating/filling out forms is MUCH easier now. Thanks!
July 27th, 2008 at 22:43
In constructing my site with I Web, I used regularly updated Leopard, most recent version of I Web, IPhoto and my websites menu bar is not visible using Firefox on any of a dozen pc's I have tried and it displays erratically with the background of each page with Internet Explorer. Apple store geniuses and one to one consultants say they have no idea and never heard of this issue.
Any ideas ?
Thanks !
August 19th, 2008 at 0:12
H Steele,
Sorry, but I can't help you.
August 28th, 2008 at 18:11
Ha, I had just filed a bug report for a web app, only to learn it is a "feature"
Thanks for explaining this clearly and concisely…it was the first link i choose on my google search, and solved the problem.
BTW: Safari 3 did exhibit this behavior for me…
Stu
August 28th, 2008 at 21:56
Stu,
Good that it helped! Interesting about Safari, I didn't know that.
September 18th, 2008 at 0:12
[...] as I expected, it turned out to be a combination of OS X prefs and Firefox settings. The key is in this article on tabbing problems in Firefox (which, to my amusement, includes notes on setting this in Camino as [...]
November 8th, 2008 at 7:47
This is the second time I've landed on your site when I've been searching for elusive answers – thank you!
So I have a question, do you know if this is also a problem in Opera? I can't seem to tab at all on web pages I know are keybard accessible. Any ideas?
November 8th, 2008 at 12:10
angela,
Glad I can be of assistance!
Sorry about Opera, though, I have no idea.
November 27th, 2008 at 17:41
Thank you so much for that! It was really bugging me!
BTW Safari may not be effected by changing this preference because you can set this option "Press tab to highlight each item on a webpage" in the Safari Advanced preferences. Thanks again!
November 27th, 2008 at 17:52
kate,
Glad it helped!
Thanks for mentioning about Safari too.
April 6th, 2009 at 19:13
nice article…
June 29th, 2009 at 6:13
Love it. Thanks!
June 29th, 2009 at 12:06
Glad it helped you!
March 4th, 2010 at 15:18
Thanks for this, a quick search solved this annoying problem.
March 4th, 2010 at 15:48
James,
Glad it was of help!
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