Enter key press behaves like a Tab in Javascript

Question

I\'m looking to create a form where pressing the enter key causes focus to go to the \"next\" form element on the page. The solution I keep finding on the web is...

Answer 1

I have it working in only JavaScript. Firefox won't let you update the keyCode, so all you can do is trap keyCode 13 and force it to focus on the next element by tabIndex as if keyCode 9 was pressed. The tricky part is finding the next tabIndex. I have tested this only on IE8-IE10 and Firefox and it works:

function ModifyEnterKeyPressAsTab(event)
{
    var caller;
    var key;
    if (window.event)
    {
        caller = window.event.srcElement; //Get the event caller in IE.
        key = window.event.keyCode; //Get the keycode in IE.
    }
    else
    {
        caller = event.target; //Get the event caller in Firefox.
        key = event.which; //Get the keycode in Firefox.
    }
    if (key == 13) //Enter key was pressed.
    {
        cTab = caller.tabIndex; //caller tabIndex.
        maxTab = 0; //highest tabIndex (start at 0 to change)
        minTab = cTab; //lowest tabIndex (this may change, but start at caller)
        allById = document.getElementsByTagName("input"); //Get input elements.
        allByIndex = []; //Storage for elements by index.
        c = 0; //index of the caller in allByIndex (start at 0 to change)
        i = 0; //generic indexer for allByIndex;
        for (id in allById) //Loop through all the input elements by id.
        {
            allByIndex[i] = allById[id]; //Set allByIndex.
            tab = allByIndex[i].tabIndex;
            if (caller == allByIndex[i])
                c = i; //Get the index of the caller.
            if (tab > maxTab)
                maxTab = tab; //Get the highest tabIndex on the page.
            if (tab < minTab && tab >= 0)
                minTab = tab; //Get the lowest positive tabIndex on the page.
            i++;
        }
        //Loop through tab indexes from caller to highest.
        for (tab = cTab; tab <= maxTab; tab++)
        {
            //Look for this tabIndex from the caller to the end of page.
            for (i = c + 1; i < allByIndex.length; i++)
            {
                if (allByIndex[i].tabIndex == tab)
                {
                    allByIndex[i].focus(); //Move to that element and stop.
                    return;
                }
            }
            //Look for the next tabIndex from the start of page to the caller.
            for (i = 0; i < c; i++)
            {
                if (allByIndex[i].tabIndex == tab + 1)
                {
                    allByIndex[i].focus(); //Move to that element and stop.
                    return;
                }
            }
            //Continue searching from the caller for the next tabIndex.
        }

        //The caller was the last element with the highest tabIndex,
        //so find the first element with the lowest tabIndex.
        for (i = 0; i < allByIndex.length; i++)
        {
            if (allByIndex[i].tabIndex == minTab)
            {
                allByIndex[i].focus(); //Move to that element and stop.
                return;
            }
        }
    }
}

To use this code, add it to your html input tag:

<input id="SomeID" onkeydown="ModifyEnterKeyPressAsTab(event);" ... >

Or add it to an element in javascript:

document.getElementById("SomeID").onKeyDown = ModifyEnterKeyPressAsTab;

A couple other notes:

I only needed it to work on my input elements, but you could extend it to other document elements if you need to. For this, getElementsByClassName is very helpful, but that is a whole other topic.

A limitation is that it only tabs between the elements that you have added to your allById array. It does not tab around to the other things that your browser might, like toolbars and menus outside your html document. Perhaps this is a feature instead of a limitation. If you like, trap keyCode 9 and this behavior will work with the tab key too.

Answer 2

There are problems with all of the implementations given here. Some don't work properly with textareas and submit buttons, most don't allow you to use shift to go backwards, none of them use tabindexes if you have them, and none of them wrap around from the last to the first or the first to the last.

To have the [enter] key act like the [tab] key but still work properly with text areas and submit buttons use the following code. In addition this code allows you to use the shift key to go backwards and the tabbing wraps around front to back and back to front.

Source code: https://github.com/mikbe/SaneEnterKey

CoffeeScript

mbsd_sane_enter_key = ->
  input_types = "input, select, button, textarea"
  $("body").on "keydown", input_types, (e) ->
    enter_key = 13
    tab_key = 9

    if e.keyCode in [tab_key, enter_key]
      self = $(this)

      # some controls should just press enter when pressing enter
      if e.keyCode == enter_key and (self.prop('type') in ["submit", "textarea"])
        return true

      form = self.parents('form:eq(0)')

      # Sort by tab indexes if they exist
      tab_index = parseInt(self.attr('tabindex'))
      if tab_index
        input_array = form.find("[tabindex]").filter(':visible').sort((a,b) -> 
          parseInt($(a).attr('tabindex')) - parseInt($(b).attr('tabindex'))
        )
      else
        input_array = form.find(input_types).filter(':visible')

      # reverse the direction if using shift
      move_direction = if e.shiftKey then -1 else 1
      new_index = input_array.index(this) + move_direction

      # wrap around the controls
      if new_index == input_array.length
        new_index = 0
      else if new_index == -1
        new_index = input_array.length - 1

      move_to = input_array.eq(new_index)
      move_to.focus()
      move_to.select()

      false

$(window).on 'ready page:load', ->
  mbsd_sane_enter_key()

JavaScript

var mbsd_sane_enter_key = function() {
  var input_types;
  input_types = "input, select, button, textarea";

  return $("body").on("keydown", input_types, function(e) {
    var enter_key, form, input_array, move_direction, move_to, new_index, self, tab_index, tab_key;
    enter_key = 13;
    tab_key = 9;

    if (e.keyCode === tab_key || e.keyCode === enter_key) {
      self = $(this);

      // some controls should react as designed when pressing enter
      if (e.keyCode === enter_key && (self.prop('type') === "submit" || self.prop('type') === "textarea")) {
        return true;
      }

      form = self.parents('form:eq(0)');

      // Sort by tab indexes if they exist
      tab_index = parseInt(self.attr('tabindex'));
      if (tab_index) {
        input_array = form.find("[tabindex]").filter(':visible').sort(function(a, b) {
          return parseInt($(a).attr('tabindex')) - parseInt($(b).attr('tabindex'));
        });
      } else {
        input_array = form.find(input_types).filter(':visible');
      }

      // reverse the direction if using shift
      move_direction = e.shiftKey ? -1 : 1;
      new_index = input_array.index(this) + move_direction;

      // wrap around the controls
      if (new_index === input_array.length) {
        new_index = 0;
      } else if (new_index === -1) {
        new_index = input_array.length - 1;
      }

      move_to = input_array.eq(new_index);
      move_to.focus();
      move_to.select();
      return false;
    }
  });
};

$(window).on('ready page:load', function() {
  mbsd_sane_enter_key();
}

Answer 3

Vanilla js with support for Shift + Enter and ability to choose which HTML tags are focusable. Should work IE9+.

  onKeyUp(e) {
    switch (e.keyCode) {
      case 13: //Enter
        var focusableElements = document.querySelectorAll('input, button')
        var index = Array.prototype.indexOf.call(focusableElements, document.activeElement)
        if(e.shiftKey)
          focus(focusableElements, index - 1)
        else
          focus(focusableElements, index + 1)

        e.preventDefault()
        break;
    }
    function focus(elements, index) {
      if(elements[index])
        elements[index].focus()
    }
  }

Answer 4

Here's what I came up with.

form.addEventListener("submit", (e) => { //On Submit
 let key = e.charCode || e.keyCode || 0 //get the key code
 if (key = 13) { //If enter key
    e.preventDefault()
    const inputs = Array.from(document.querySelectorAll("form input")) //Get array of inputs
    let nextInput = inputs[inputs.indexOf(document.activeElement) + 1] //get index of input after the current input
    nextInput.focus() //focus new input
}
}

Answer 5

$("#form input , select , textarea").keypress(function(e){
    if(e.keyCode == 13){
        var enter_position = $(this).index();
        $("#form input , select , textarea").eq(enter_position+1).focus();
    }
});

Answer 6

Changing this behaviour actually creates a far better user experience than the default behaviour implemented natively. Consider that the behaviour of the enter key is already inconsistent from the user's point of view, because in a single line input, enter tends to submit a form, while in a multi-line textarea, it simply adds a newline to the contents of the field.

I recently did it like this (uses jQuery):

$('input.enterastab, select.enterastab, textarea.enterastab').live('keydown', function(e) {
 if (e.keyCode==13) {
  var focusable = $('input,a,select,button,textarea').filter(':visible');
  focusable.eq(focusable.index(this)+1).focus();
  return false;
 }
});

This is not terribly efficient, but works well enough and is reliable - just add the 'enterastab' class to any input element that should behave in this way.