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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-24T13:09:46+00:00

Is there a way (either in IB or code) to set the tab order

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Is there a way (either in IB or code) to set the tab order between text fields in a view?

Note that I’m not talking about the next form field after the return (or “Next”) button is pressed — many bluetooth keyboards have a tab key, which seems to cycle through the fields in completely different order. In my particular case, this order doesn’t correspond to the fields’ position in the view or even the order in which the fields were added. Modifying the xib file by hand to change the NSNextKeyView doesn’t seem to make a difference either.

Does anyone know how to change this order?

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  1. Editorial Team

    I’m interested in solving the same problem, although so far the default order, which appears to be left to right, then top to bottom, is the one I want.

    I tested the hypothesis that the cursor moves in depth-first order through the tree of subviews and superview, but that is not true. Changing the order of subviews without changing their location didn’t change the order of fields traversed by tab presses.

    One possibly useful feature is that the text field delegate’s textFieldShouldBeginEditing method appears to be called for every text field in the application’s window. If that returns NO, then the text field won’t be chosen, so if you can define your desired order and make only the right one return YES, that might solve your problem.

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