How idiotic! No way to tab stop on option button within group?

[Montez659]

Just read this from MS:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa202267(v=office.10).aspx

This property doesn't apply to check box, option button, or toggle button controls when they appear in an option group. It applies only to the option group itself.

So this really hinders my ability to just tab through my form, as I have an option group and it is quite pivotal to the form. Any other ways around this? I guess I could take the option button's out of the option group and put some code behind them to see if one is selected to deselect the other one, but is this really a good way of doing it?

Any other suggestions?

 

[jasmith4]

1. When you tab to the group, you can use the arrow keys to select the next/previous option.

2. You can set an accelerator key on each one by adding an ampersand (&) before one letter in the label. For example, if the label's caption is "&Next", it will appear as "Next", and Alt-N will be the keystroke that selects that option. Be careful not to choose a keystroke that opens a menu -- for example, don't pick F, because Alt-F almost alway opens the File menu.

 

[Montez659]

Gotcha. Thanks for the info. It is still really dumb though, and messes with the flow of using the tab key to tab through the form.

I think I am going to rebuild it and forget using the option group altogether and instead keep them spearate so that I can maintain the tab. It is only one small group with two options, and it isn't that hard to set the unselected one to False in the On Click Event of each.

Appreciate the info!

 

[xenou]

IMHO option buttons are mouse-oriented. User's are not expecting to tab to an option button, nor would they know what to do if they did tab to one -- I'm assuming a space bar will select/deselect an option button but this probably isn't common knowledge or common usage with option buttons. My two cents, for better or worse.

 

[Montez659]

Xen, you bring up a good point and one that I will retain for future projects. I found this out while working on one of the forms for that financial db we were discussing I guess it might not be common knowledge, and I am not sure how I even discovered it, but sometimes using the mouse is sooooo time consuming....

 

[jasmith4]

Actually Microsoft encourages developers to implement keyboard shortcuts all over. Just search the Windows help for "keyboard shortcuts", and you'll find dozens like:

- Alt-space drops down any application's control menu
- Alt-minus drops down a document's control menu
- Alt-down and Alt-up drop down and shrink up a drop-down list or combo with focus
- Space clicks a button or toggles a checkbox with focus
- Arrows move to and select an option within a group with focus
- Alt-Tab and Alt-Esc switch among applications

...and lots more.