Tabbing between text entry fields does not select contents

May 10, 2019

Tabbing between text entry fields in most instances selects the contents of the field so the user can immediately begin typing and replace the old text with new text. In SL360 published module, the cursor is instead placed at the END of the contents, so the user either has to ctrl+A to select the contents, or backspace, or use their mouse.  This is a pain when you have a number of fields for them to fill in. See the examples below. (I think this is a new issue in SL360, because I think it worked correctly in SL3)

This first gif shows how I expect tabbing to work, and how it works in updating a user profile on E-Learning Heroes:

Tab behaviour on most web pages/forms 

This second gif shows how tabbing works in a published SL360 module:

Tab behaviour on SL360 published module

4 Replies
Terry Bell

If you want a form that has the normal tabbing behaviour, it can be done using a web object. I have attached a simple example. It uses 3 Storyline variables: FormField1, FormField2, FormField3. It displays the initial value of the fields when the form loads, and can be used to update the fields as well.

You'll notice that the first two fields (name, email) are selected as you tab to them (normal html form behaviour). But the third field is a 'textarea', so your cursor is actually placed at the end of the text, allowing you to append to it. (which is what ALL fields do in Storyline 3 & 360)

I hope this helps someone - if you have questions, please post them here and I'll try to help, or maybe someone who IS an expert can help.  I am not a javascript expert, so if you know what you're doing, I'm sure it could be improved. I used w3schools, MDN, and other resources to cobble this together.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Terry,

Great news! 

We just released another update for Articulate 360, which includes a fix for selecting the data in the text and numeric entry fields when tabbing.

Just launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button for Storyline 360. Details here.

Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.

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