Custom tabbing on large forms

A common issue when designing large forms is getting the Custom Tab Order tool to behave properly. There comes a point where it becomes completely unusable.

My recommended workaround is to redesign the form for use with Automatic Tabbing. Take the following example:

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Automatic tabbing always goes top/down, left/right. So in order to get the tabbing to work its way down each client section, we just need to wrap them inside their own subforms:

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When the Automatic tabbing system encounters a subform it will resolve all items in that subform before continuing.

Now this works for most forms, but what if you wanted the tabbing to go from Client1 to Client3? The answer is more subforms ! Selecting the subforms for Client1 and Client3 I wrap them both into yet another subform, I then wrap Client2 and Client4 into their own subform. The result is this:

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If you've done all this and you notice your tabbing is still acting oddly, the most common pitfall is accidently wrapping a cosmetic item (line, rectangle, etc) into one of your field subforms. This can be resolved by placing any cosmetic items into their own subform.

If you have any questions be sure to give us a call or drop us an e-mail !