Home
The HyperCard Center
HyperTalk Reference
Home » HyperTalk Reference » tabKey

Note: This is a work in progress and many formatting issues have been fixed. Read more about the project on the home page.

tabKey

tabKey

The tabKey command opens the first unlocked field on the current card or background (placing the insertion point in the field) and selects its entire contents.

If a field is already open for editing, tabKey closes it and opens the next editable field, selecting its contents. (A field is editable only if it is unlocked and visible.)

The tabKey command opens fields in the following order: from the lowest to the highest numbered background field, then from the lowest to the highest numbered card field.

HyperCard sends the tabKey command to a field or the current card when the user presses the Tab key. You can handle the tabKey message as follows:

on tabKey
statements
end tabKey

Examples

-- Set the insertion point in the first editable field on openCard
on openCard
tabKey
end openCard

Related Topics

Placeholders

statements

Any return-separated list of built-in commands, user-defined handlers, or keywords that are part of a message or function handler.

put "Hello world" -- built-in command
get total(field 1) -- function call
global HelpInfo -- keyword

HyperTalk Reference

Version 0.8b4 (July 4, 2025)

Made with Macintosh

Switch to Retro View