By default, on a Mac in Firefox, tab moves from one form element to another—except it will skip radio buttons, checkboxes and drop-down select boxes. I have suffered in silence since I started using the Mac. I finally found out that this too can be remedied. Hooray!

There is an actual setting in the Mac OS that produces this behavior. To change this so that tab treats all form elements with equality go to: System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse and select the tab Keyboard Shortcuts. On the bottom you will see a setting for “Full Keyboard Access”. Just set it to All Controls. This setting will take effect right away, no need to restart Firefox.

Found this in the comments on John Resig’s blog

5 Responses to “Firefox Tip on the Mac: Tabbing through Select Fields”

  1. Elysse Says:
    Wow! I've been struggling with this annoyance for months. Thanks for the great tip!
  2. Ruthie Says:
    Hey thanks for the info! These macs are an unruly bunch but we shall corral them!
  3. Andy Sanders Says:
    Thanks for the tip. This has been bothering me a lot.
  4. David Says:
    Excellent post. This has been slowing me down for months. Thanks!
  5. localtime Says:
    Thanks for this great tip. I use Firefox on Mac too.

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