W3C Tabindex test page

Status of this document

This page is meant to test how tabindex works on various platforms. It was written by Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org - because I was wondering about it, but I am likely to use the results as input to W3C working groups, especially WAI groups.

If you test it, please send any results to charles@w3.org including: what browser you used, what operating system you were using, and the version of browser and operating system. I will try to gather them into this page.

Last modified on $Date: 2000/01/17 13:22:46 $ by $Author: charles $

How it works:

There are a number of links on the page. The first is to the W3C, the next three are to charles, and the rest are numbered, for example "link five". Some of the links have a tabindex attribute, and in that case they will also say what that is, for example "link six - tabindex 1". All the numbered links are to the top of the page. I am curious about what order you get to the links in - whether tabindex works at all in your browser, and if it does, do you tab to link six and then get to "link seven", which has no tabindex, or do you go to "link eight - tabindex 2". If you got to link eight, does the next "tab" take you to "link nine", because there are no more links with a tabindex, or does it take you to the top? And the last link is "link ten" because that seemed like a nice number of links (at least for now).

Results:

Summary:

Internet Explorer 4.0 and 5.0 running under Windows select the links which have a tabindex sequentially (in the order of their tabindex) and then begin from the top selecting the rest of the links. Netscape under Windows, up to version 4.7, Opera 3.51, and Lynx under Linux seem to ignore the tabindex. Internet Explorer and Netscape on the Macintosh, and Netscape under Linux, do not seem to enable tabbing between links.

Details:

(Many thanks to Ricardo Sanchez, and Emmanuelle Gutiérrez y Restrepo for their results. Any errors in collating are the author's.)

Internet Explorer 4.0, under Windows 95 and Windows 98

  1. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window
  2. It selects the first item in the link bar of the browser
  3. It selects Tabindex 1 link six
  4. It selects Tabindex 2 link eight
  5. It selects the logo and the next dash as a element (*)
  6. It selects Charles McCathieNevile
  7. It selects the first charles@w3.org
  8. It selects the second charles@w3.org
  9. It selects link five
  10. It selects link seven
  11. It selects link nine
  12. It selects link ten
  13. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window

Note: With the combination of Keys SHIFT + TAB, it follows the same order in the other direction

Internet Explorer 5.0 under Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0

  1. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window
  2. It selects Tabindex 1 link six
  3. It selects Tabindex 2 link eight
  4. It selects the logo and the next dash as a element (*)
  5. It selects Charles McCathieNevile
  6. It selects the first charles@w3.org
  7. It selects the second charles@w3.org
  8. It selects link five
  9. It selects link seven
  10. It selects link nine
  11. It selects link ten
  12. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window

Note: With the combination of Keys SHIFT + TAB, it follows the same order on the other direction

Nestcape Navigator 4.7 under Windows 98, Netscape Navigator 4.5 under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0

  1. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window
  2. It selects the logo
  3. It selects the dash which appears between the logo W3C and the header as different element
  4. It selects Charles McCathieNevile
  5. It selects the first charles@w3.org
  6. It selects the second charles@w3.org
  7. It selects link five
  8. It selects Tabindex 1 link six
  9. It selects link seven
  10. It selects Tabindex 2 link eight
  11. It selects link nine
  12. It selects link ten
  13. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window

Note: With the combination of Keys SHIFT + TAB, it follows the same order in the other direction.

Opera 3.51 under Windows 98

  1. It selects the logo and the next dash as a element
  2. It selects Charles McCathieNevile
  3. It selects the first charles@w3.org
  4. It selects the second charles@w3.org
  5. It selects link five
  6. It selects Tabindex 1 link six
  7. It selects link seven
  8. It selects Tabindex 2 link eight
  9. It selects link nine
  10. It selects link ten
  11. It selects the logo and the next dash as a element

Lynx 2.8.1 under Linux 2.2 (RedHat 6.0)

  1. It selects W3C (the logo alt)
  2. It selects Charles McCathieNevile
  3. It selects the first charles@w3.org
  4. It selects the second charles@w3.org
  5. It selects link five
  6. It selects Tabindex 1 link six
  7. It selects link seven
  8. It selects Tabindex 2 link eight
  9. It selects link nine
  10. It selects link ten
  11. It selects W3C (the logo alt)

Internet Explorer 4.5 and 3.01 under MacOS 8.0, Netscape Navigator 4.07, 3.01 under MacOS 8.0, Netscape Navigator 4.6 under MacOS 8.6, Netscape Navigator 4.04 under MacOS 8.0 and 7.5.3

  1. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window
  2. It focuses the contents window without selecting any element
  3. It selects the url of the visited page in the location window

Netscape Navigator 4.51 under Linux 2.2 (RedHat 6.0), Netscape Navigator 2.02 under MacOS 8.0

The TAB key does nothing