# Tab Index and Scroll Pane Component

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/tab-index-and-scroll-pane-component/183849>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [March 30, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/tab-index-and-scroll-pane-component/183849 "2006-03-30T17:57:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rmo518](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f19dbf/32.png) [@rmo518](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/rmo518)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/tab-index-and-scroll-pane-component/183849/1 "2006-03-30T17:57:14Z")

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I’ve been doing searches on tabIndex and tabEnabled, but haven’t turned up an answer to this. I am using a scroll pane component. The movie it links to dynamically attaches a series of mcs (using attachMovieClip). Each of these movie clips in turn has has a series of Input Text fields.

I would like to be able to tab between text fields, but hitting the tab key sets the focus to other places (buttons on the stage or some element within the scroll pane component itself) but _never_ to the text fields. I have given them instance names and used tabIndex = \*somenumber \*and this has not helped.

Is there some confilct between using a scroll plane component and tabEnabled text fields? Is there a way to get this to work?

Any insight would be appreciated.

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**Author:** ![rmo518](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f19dbf/32.png) [@rmo518](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/rmo518)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/tab-index-and-scroll-pane-component/183849/2 "2006-03-30T18:11:40Z")

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Okay, on further review . . . I found this reference on the Macromedia website:

[Focus Manager TechNote](http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?event=view&id=KC.tn_18983&extid=tn_18983&dialogID=112192993&iterationID=1&sessionID=9630f4775a997d5c4a23&stateID=0+0+28085710&mode=simple)

As I understand it the use of a component forces you to tell flash what items to “see” as tab enabled using tabEnabled _and_ tabChildren. tabChildren is what I was missing.

I had to specify mycomponent.tabChildren = true; and mycomponent.tabEnabled=false; I also specified that each container movie clip’s tabChildren = true but tabEnabled = false;