This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

When I'm entering data in a website such as my address, I use the Tab button to jump between windows. How do I make it stop at drop-down menus (right now the tab button jumps past them)?

  • 2 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by youngvet

more options

Right now when I use the tab button to jump between windows on a website where you enter data, such as an address. It always jumps past a drop-down menu such as the "state", so I have to use the mouse to click on the drop-down menu. Is there a preference setting in FF that will cause the tab button to stop at everything instead of skipping drop-down menus?

Right now when I use the tab button to jump between windows on a website where you enter data, such as an address. It always jumps past a drop-down menu such as the "state", so I have to use the mouse to click on the drop-down menu. Is there a preference setting in FF that will cause the tab button to stop at everything instead of skipping drop-down menus?

Chosen solution

See: Pressing Tab key does not select menus or buttons See http://kb.mozillazine.org/accessibility.tabfocus

Note: In OS X (as of 2005-01), if this preference is not explicitly set, the “Full Keyboard Access” setting in System Preferences will be honored. All builds before that date (e.g., Firefox 1.0.x) will ignore that setting.
This pref doesn't exist by default, so if you want to use it instead of the system settings then you need to create a new Integer pref with the name accessibility.tabfocus and set the value to what you want (7 is to tab through all the fields).

See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/about%3Aconfig

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

See: Pressing Tab key does not select menus or buttons See http://kb.mozillazine.org/accessibility.tabfocus

Note: In OS X (as of 2005-01), if this preference is not explicitly set, the “Full Keyboard Access” setting in System Preferences will be honored. All builds before that date (e.g., Firefox 1.0.x) will ignore that setting.
This pref doesn't exist by default, so if you want to use it instead of the system settings then you need to create a new Integer pref with the name accessibility.tabfocus and set the value to what you want (7 is to tab through all the fields).

See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/about%3Aconfig

Modified by cor-el

more options

thanks! Guaranteed to be too complex for basic/casual FF users, but I followed your instructions and the website's that you linked to. It's a shame this isn't a simple option in the preferences dialog box.