How to programmatically navigate WPF UI element tab stops?

wpf keyboard navigation tabstop
Michael Hewitt picture Michael Hewitt · May 1, 2009 · Viewed 17.8k times · Source

Can anyone tell me how to programmatically navigate through all UI element tab stops in a WPF application? I want to start with the first tab stop sniff the corresponding element, visit the next tab stop, sniff the corresponding element, and so on until I reach the last tab stop.

Thanks, - Mike

Answer

gcores picture gcores · May 1, 2009

You do that using MoveFocus as shown in this MSDN article which explains everything about focus: Focus Overview.

Here is some sample code to get to the next focused element (got it from that article, slightly modified).

// MoveFocus takes a TraversalRequest as its argument.
TraversalRequest request = new TraversalRequest(FocusNavigationDirection.Next);

// Gets the element with keyboard focus.
UIElement elementWithFocus = Keyboard.FocusedElement as UIElement;

// Change keyboard focus.
if (elementWithFocus != null) 
{
    elementWithFocus.MoveFocus(request);
}

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