Enter key press behaves like a Tab in Javascript

Question

I\'m looking to create a form where pressing the enter key causes focus to go to the \"next\" form element on the page. The solution I keep finding on the web is...

Answer 1

Here is an angular.js directive to make enter go to the next field using the other answers as inspiration. There is some, perhaps, odd looking code here because I only use the jQlite packaged with angular. I believe most of the features here work in all browsers > IE8.

angular.module('myapp', [])
.directive('pdkNextInputOnEnter', function() {
    var includeTags = ['INPUT', 'SELECT'];

    function link(scope, element, attrs) {
        element.on('keydown', function (e) {
            // Go to next form element on enter and only for included tags
            if (e.keyCode == 13 && includeTags.indexOf(e.target.tagName) != -1) {
                // Find all form elements that can receive focus
                var focusable = element[0].querySelectorAll('input,select,button,textarea');

                // Get the index of the currently focused element
                var currentIndex = Array.prototype.indexOf.call(focusable, e.target)

                // Find the next items in the list
                var nextIndex = currentIndex == focusable.length - 1 ? 0 : currentIndex + 1;

                // Focus the next element
                if(nextIndex >= 0 && nextIndex < focusable.length)
                    focusable[nextIndex].focus();

                return false;
            }
        });
    }

    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: link
    };
});

Here's how I use it in the app I'm working on, by just adding the pdk-next-input-on-enter directive on an element. I am using a barcode scanner to enter data into fields, the default function of the scanner is to emulate a keayboard, injecting an enter key after typing the data of the scanned barcode.

There is one side-effect to this code (a positive one for my use-case), if it moves focus onto a button, the enter keyup event will cause the button's action to be activated. This worked really well for my flow as the last form element in my markup is a button that I want activated once all the fields have been "tabbed" through by scanning barcodes.

  
      
      
  
  
      

          
          
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