The TabIndex Assistant feature allows you to assign easily the right TabIndex property to each control on a form, usercontrol, etc.
MZ-Tools offers the following ways to show the TabIndex Assistant:
- The Tools | MZ-Tools | TabIndex Assistant menu.
- The TabIndex Assistant context menu of a control placed on a Form, UserControl, Property Page or User Document.
- The TabIndex Assistant button on the MZ-Tools toolbar.
- The shortcut customized in the Options window, Shortcuts tab.
The TabIndex Assistant window is the following:
It shows the controls of the selected file in the Project Explorer of Visual Basic, sorted by their TabIndex property. Controls are also indented to reflect their parent-child relationship.
To change the TabIndex property of a control or group of controls you can:
- Use the buttons with the up and down arrows to move the selected controls one position.
- Drag and drop the selected controls in the list to a new position.
- Use the Control + Up Arrow and Control + Down Arrow keys of the keyboard to move the selected controls one position.
- Use the Control + Page Up and Control + Page Down keys of the keyboard to move the selected controls 20 positions.
- Use the Control + Home and Control + End keys of the keyboard to move the selected controls to the top or bottom of the list.
- Click the Automatic button. This feature uses an algorithm based on parent-child relationship among controls and the relative position of controls.
When you select a control of the list, if the file which it belongs to has the designer window open, the control is selected in that window. A very useful way to check whether the controls are sorted properly or not is to select the first control of the list and with the Down Arrow key of the keyboard select the next control, checking in the designer window if the tab order is right.
If you check the Mark Controls With Error checkbox, the controls with a wrong TabIndex property are shown with a warning icon.
Remarks:
- This feature is not available in the VBA version of MZ-Tools.
- It is recommended to dock the assistant window in the left side of the Visual Basic IDE.
- Checking the Mark Controls With Error checkbox can decrease the performance, so it is recommended to deactivate it while moving the items in the list.
- If a file is read-only, then you can not modify the TabIndex property of the controls.
- The TabIndex Assistant window shows the controls of the selected file in the Project Explorer window of Visual Basic, not the controls of the active designer window at that moment. This is the same behavior of the Properties Window of Visual Basic.
- Controls which lack the TabIndex property, such Timer or Image controls are not shown in the list.
- While you use the assistant, you should not change the TabIndex property of a control using the Properties window. Changes of the TabIndex property of a control done using that window will not be reflected in the controls list of the assistant. However, you can perform other changes while the assistant window is open such adding or removing controls or changing the name of a control.
- The context menu of a designer window doesn't show the Assistant TabIndex menu due to a problem with Visual Basic. However, it is shown in the context menu of a control.
- Using VB6, if after dropping a block of selected items in the list the selection is changed to a single item instead of remaining as a block (as before the drag and drop operation), update to Visual Basic 6.0 Service Pack 4 or higher. The MSCOMCTL.OCX component of Service Pack 4 seems to fix that bug.
See Also: