Tab between fields on mobile device

andrew at midwestcoastmedia.com andrew at midwestcoastmedia.com
Thu Nov 1 09:41:55 EDT 2018


I'm trying to tab from field to field in a mobile app when pressing  
the TAB key on a bluetooth keyboard, but having no luck in an iOS app.  
My "on tabKey" code works fine in the IDE but not on the iPad.

After closer inspection of the dictionary, I discovered that the  
tabKey handler is NOT supported by iOS. My attempt to use keyDown  
instead is thwarted because according to that dictionary entry: "If  
the key pressed is the Return, Tab, Backspace, Delete, or Enter key,  
an arrow key, or a function key, no keyDown message is sent. Instead,  
the returnKey, tabKey, backspaceKey, deleteKey, enterKey, arrowKey, or  
functionKey message is sent."

This led me to try rawKeyDown. When running in IDE this gives me a  
proper key code (65289) but when running in iOS I'm returned a zero.

on rawKeyDown tKeyName
    ## THIS ATTEMPTS TO MAKE THE tabKey CODE MOBILE FRIENDLY
    if tKeyName = 0 or tKeyName = 65289 then
       tabKey
    else
       pass rawKeyDown
    end if
end rawKeyDown

The code I hacked together will force a tab for a number of other  
special characters (from quick tests, almost every key combo of ALT  
and any other key returns 0 as well). I don't need to be too flexible  
(this is an in-house product only running on 1 specific model of iPad  
Pro) but am curious if there is a better way to approach this.

--Andrew Bell







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