How do you set the tab order in iOS?

Question

Is there a way (either in IB or code) to set the tab order between text fields in a view?

Note that I\'m not talking about the next form field after the return (or

Answer 1

This is how you set the tab order on iOS:

http://weaklyreferenced.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/responding-to-the-tab-and-shift-tab-keys-on-ios-5-ios-6-with-an-external-keyboard/

Answer 2

The Tab key behaviour in ios will be as follows:- when u press tab on external keyboard- the control traverses across all the textfields in that screen by calling only shouldBeginEditing method where its return value is also determined by Apple which cant be override. After scanning all the fields it calculates nearest x positioned Textfield relative to view offset from the current Textfield and then nearest Y Positioned Field.

Also can't be done anything until control comes to textFieldDidBeginEditing method.

Reason for apple's restriction might be to let devs to follow the guidelines of UI where next responder of field should be it's closest positioned Field rather than any other field .

Answer 3

I'm interested in solving the same problem, although so far the default order, which appears to be left to right, then top to bottom, is the one I want.

I tested the hypothesis that the cursor moves in depth-first order through the tree of subviews and superview, but that is not true. Changing the order of subviews without changing their location didn't change the order of fields traversed by tab presses.

One possibly useful feature is that the text field delegate's textFieldShouldBeginEditing method appears to be called for every text field in the application's window. If that returns NO, then the text field won't be chosen, so if you can define your desired order and make only the right one return YES, that might solve your problem.

Answer 4

The only way I've found to uniquely detect a Tab keystroke from a physical keyboard, is implementing the UIKeyInput protocol's insertText: method on a custom object that canBecomeFirstResponder.

- (void)insertText:(NSString *)text {
    NSLog(@"text is equal to tab character: %i", [text isEqualToString:@"\t"]);
}

I didn't get this to work while subclassing UITextField, unfortunately, as UITextField won't allow the insertText: protocol method to get called.

Might help you on the way, though..

Answer 5

I solved this by subclassing UITextField as NextableTextField. That subclass has a property of class UITextField with IBOutlet a hookup.

Build the interface in IB. Set the class of your text field to NextableTextField. Use the connections Inspector to drag a connection to the 'next' field you want to tab to.

In your text field delegate class, add this delegate method...

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldReturn:(UITextField *) textField
{
    BOOL didResign = [textField resignFirstResponder];
    if (!didResign) return NO;

    if ([textField isKindOfClass:[NextableTextField class]])
        dispatch_async(dispatch_get_current_queue(), ^{ [[(NextableTextField *)textField nextField] becomeFirstResponder]; });

    return YES;
}

BTW - I didn't come up with this; just remember seeing someone else's idea.

Answer 6

You can do this by setting the tag for each textfield and handling this in the textfieldShouldReturn method.

See this blogpost about it: http://iphoneincubator.com/blog/windows-views/how-to-create-a-data-entry-screen