is there a way to disable 'tab' on a input type='text'?

Question

is there a cross-browser solution to disable 'tab' on a input type='text' ?

<input type='text' />

Pressing 'tab' moves you to the next 'focusable' component (for example a button)

I want instead 'tab' to do something else. For example Even in a google search tab is just used to autocomplete the suggested text instead of moving you to the next focusable component...

thanks

Answer 1

document.querySelector('input').addEventListener('keydown', function (e) {
    if (e.which == 9) {
        e.preventDefault();
    }
});

Depends on how cross-browser you are talking though, as the above only supports IE9 (and other modern browsers).

http://jsfiddle.net/ExplosionPIlls/YVUzz/

IE8- use attachEvent instead of addEventListener and e.keyCode instead of e.which, and there is no preventDefault, but you can use return false.

Answer 2

a non jQuery implementation would be a bit like this -

HTML would be

<input type="text" id="myField1" onkeydown="return stopTab(event);" />

and JS something like below

function stopTab( e ) {
    var evt = e || window.event
    if ( evt.keyCode === 9 ) {
        return false
    }
}