Setting focus to text entry box in Storyline

For the text box to show the blinking cursor as soon as the slide starts it must be the first object in the slide tab order so it is the object that has focus, to use web development speak. Storyline sets tab order basically from the top left of a slide to the bottom right--each time you press the tab key you'll see a yellow box around each item that has focus. That's why you are having success by putting images in the slide background or master, they are not jumping ahead of the text entry box in the tab order. And by putting the text entry box at the bottom of the timeline you are putting it first in the tab order UNLESS you have anything else on the slide positioned higher on the slide.

We discovered that if our text entry slide includes other elements on the slide AND those elements are positioned on the slide higher on the slide, those elements take the focus when the slide starts. It's easy to test. Put an element upper left of your text box and you get no flashing cursor. Move the element to bottom right of the slide and you get blinking cursor. you can also press tab and watch the yellow box jump.

The exciting part is we found a fix, so long as you give up keyboard control (tabbing to elements) on that slide. If you have elements on the slide that are stealing focus before your text entry box, you have to turn off their accessibility visibility. You do that by selecting the element, going to Size and Position, going to the Alt Text tab, and unchecking the box "Object is visible to .....". That removes the object from tab order (so keyboard users can't access it), but it will let you position things on the slide while still keeping your text entry box as the first focused object.

Needless to say, it would be awesome if we could set tab order.

Cheers!