Make the tab key only select text fields, not menus and other stuff

[hellopaul]

Hello,
When I've got any kind of dialogue box open with text fields, I use the tab key to hop between the text fields. But, doing this also hops to any pop-up menus, which means I can change the thing in the pop-up menu using the up/down cursor keys, which might possibly be useful in a very few situations, I pretty much never want to do that. Is there a way to turn off this annoying behaviour?

This is a system-wide behaviour - not application specific.

I've searched around and can only find answers referring to alt-tabbing between apps.

Thanks,
Paul

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello and welcome Paul mate have you ried the IE pop up blocker - turn on?
Tools > Pop up blocker > turn on or off could eba simple as that but incase it isn't I would definitely run these.

http://www.superantispyware.com/

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

download from bleeping computer – delete any rubbishthese find.

then these if you haven't already



http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html < use the /f switch option in Option 2 ifnecessary

 

[hellopaul]

ICit2lol...I think you either completely misread my question or posted this reply by mistake.

Or is ICit2lol's reply some kind of spam? It certainly looks suspicious.

- Paul

 

[JDobbsy1987]

John's (ICit2lol) reply certainly isn't spam - he is a very established member of the SevenForums family

If i understand your question correctly then i don't think there is a way, when you Tab it always moves to the next item in the sequence.

Regards,
Jamie

 

[ICIT2LOL]

ICit2lol...I think you either completely misread my question or posted this reply by mistake.

Or is ICit2lol's reply some kind of spam? It certainly looks suspicious.

- Paul

Hum Paul well mate I am very surprised and not really impressed with your reply and what I posted was to check your system to and eliminate those causes as a maybe fault.
Plus you realize that post are vetted by the moderators and any suspicion of wrong doing is very quickly dealt with - that includes spamming an other digressions if you care to read the general rules of the forum
An option for you is to report my post that is up to you if you so wish.

Anyway I asked for those checks, because getting pop ups is not an acceptable and very odd function unless one has made some settings for that to happen though why one should do that is beyond my comprehension.

So the choice is yours if you do not trust anything I say or post then please say so and I shall leave the problem to someone else.

 

[Yard Dog]

hellopaul, hello, the best thing is to use well known free programs as suggested to eliminate possible issues. Pls report back your results for further assistance.

 

[essenbe]

ICit2lol...I think you either completely misread my question or posted this reply by mistake.

Or is ICit2lol's reply some kind of spam? It certainly looks suspicious.

- Paul

Posts like that are really uncalled for and don't encourage more help. ICit2lol is a very well respected member and always helpful. If you post further, I would recommend choosing your words better.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well my sentiments entirely essenbe what I would like to know is what was even in the slightest bit like spam in my post because everything and links I suggested is / are well known and used by many people in this and other forums.

 

[essenbe]

I wouldn't be overly concerned. There was nothing at all wrong with your post. I use many of those tools you suggested. I'm not sure how anyone would think those tools were spam.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I wouldn't be overly concerned. There was nothing at all wrong with your post. I use many of those tools you suggested. I'm not sure how anyone would think those tools were spam.

Yes my friend well the lack of response from the OP has me thinking perhaps it isn't so much of a problem or that he would rather deal with someone else. Either way it is no skin off my nose.

 

[hellopaul]

Sorry if I caused offence to anyone - but ICit2lol's suggestions referring to pop-up blockers in IE (I assume the reference was to Internet Explorer - which, of course, I never use anyway) and virus removal from dubious sounding sites such as "malwarebytes" were just not at all relevant to the original question I asked, hence my assumption that he had not read it, or this was something auto-posted just for the sake of posting something.

Thank you to JDobbsy1987 for your reply.

I know that the default tab behaviour is as-designed, not something caused by a virus. I was just asking if there was a way to alter its behaviour. I know it must have been useful to tab to menus and use the arrow keys to select stuff in the pre-mouse days of the 1980s, but technology has moved on slightly since then, and I'm sure only a minuscule minority of users clicks up and down through menus without a mouse. I come from decades of Apple Mac usage, and that has a system preference to change exactly this behaviour. It seems bizarre that Microsoft has chosen to stick with this antiquated behaviour.

- Paul

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well my friend for one thing there was very little in the way of system specs so I am not to know what you are using for a browser or search engine, I am not a mind reader.

The other on call scans are used by most of the members in this forum and in fact the paid for version of Malwarebytes is one of the only real time AV programs that I know will run alongside Kaspersky, and quite a few other mainstream paid for suites.

Your assumption that your problem cannot be caused by a malware infection is in my mind erroneous as anything within a computer in this day and age is possible. Not that you will probably take any notice of me but my advice would be to do some research on how, when , and what malware can infect in a computer. I think that many individuals think that because they run an anti malware program the are safe but it is a misnomer that has left many with seriously malfunctioning machines.

The other system checkers are in fact standard for anyone using Windows as it is built into the operating system. I frequently use these suggestions as base checks in threads as they are just a form of starting the elimination process off and there are far heavier AV checks that can be used and usually the thread starter will get more suggestions for a fix on top of what I have posted . I have no illusions that the scans and checks I posted probably may or may not come up with anything and so move on to something else.

I think what I found a little out of order was the fact that you thought what I had sent was suspicious and I would have thought that perhaps you might have done me the courtesy of asking me or another member re the legitimacy of those program/s before replying what you did.

You also had the option to report me to a moderator though I also would have though that after seeing my status and number of posts in the forum that it would be highly unlikely that I would give out advice that would be plain drivel or of a "suspicious" nature.

Having said that I hope you see that my intentions were not meant to confuse, misdirect you or
create any mischievous situation. I am a senior member in age and time on this forum though not so long as some and have no desire to do anything but help and advise others like yourself in sorting out any problems they have.
I bear no grudges and I hope this has cleared a few facts up for you and should you post in future I am more than willing to help out when and where I can.
John

 

[Layback Bear]

I must be a real dummy.
I'm still trying to figure out what is popping up when the Tab button is used. Can somebody post a picture so I can sleep tonight?

 

[hellopaul]

Layback bear: This situation occurs when there's a dialogue box on screen, for example if you're trying to set something like page margins for a printer. You'd use the tab key to highlight the top, left, right and bottom text fields to type in the desired values. On a Mac, pressing the tab key would cycle through these four text fields. On Windows 7, for some unknown reason, it also highlights every button and menu that may also be in that dialogue box, which is a really annoying bug, or something left over from the days when people didn't have a mouse. Either way, it is truly ludicrous and it's rather bizarre that Microsoft hasn't fixed this.

Here's another example:

This is the dialogue box to set up a new document in Photoshop. If I click in the Width field, I can change the width to whatever I want. I then hit tab to change the height and start typing, but no! Stupid Windows 7 has highlighted the "Pixels" drop-down menu next to the width, and is trying to interpret my keystrokes as menu commands. I then have to press tab once again to get to the Height text field. This bug happens across all Windows 7 apps.

But as has been suggested in this forum, this ridiculous behaviour is not fixable, and we're just stuck with it.