Keyboard Navigation
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With the provided keyboard support, ASPxGridView’s primary navigation operations (such as accessing a grid within a form, moving focus through grid rows, row selection, row expanding/collapsing, paging) can be quickly and effectively performed using a keyboard as an alternative to a pointing device. In addition, enabling keyboard support within ASPxGridView helps you more easily create web pages that conform to accessibility guidelines.
To enable keyboard navigation, set the grid’s ASPxGridView.KeyboardSupport property to true. This activates the following grid features.
- Access Key - The grid control can be easily accessed (focused) by using a user-defined keyboard shortcut. This shortcut is composed by combining the preset CTRL+SHIFT combination with a single character string specified via the AccessKey property. For example, setting the access key of a grid control to the “G” string indicates that an end-user can navigate to the grid by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+G.
- Focused Row - The Focused Row feature is automatically activated, regardless of the corresponding feature property setting (ASPxGridViewBehaviorSettings.AllowFocusedRow). Focus can be moved between rows by using the UP and DOWN ARROW keys. The LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys can also be used to move row focus, but these keys try to initially collapse/expand a row and move focus only if collapsing/expanding is impossible. An attempt to move focus from the current page’s first or last row outside (backward or forward) the page turns over the page within the grid, if only the currently focused row is not the very first or last grid row.
- Row Selection - The SPACE key can be used to mark a focused row as either selected or unselected. This works if the selection can be applied to a row - that is, if it’s not a group or detail row, the ASPxGridViewBehaviorSettings.AllowMultiSelection property is enabled, or the row contains a command button, selection check box or radio button. Multiple rows can be easily selected by moving row focus using the ARROW keys (UP/DOWN or LEFT/RIGHT) while holding down the SHIFT key.
- Expanding/Collapsing Rows - The PLUS and MINUS keys can be used respectively to expand and collapse group and detail rows. In addition, row collapsing and expanding can be performed using the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys.
- Paging - The SHIFT+PAGE UP and SHIFT+PAGE DOWN key combinations can be used to go to the next/previous grid page.
Note
You can use UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT keys to navigate between grid-like control’s records if the control’s KeyboardSupport option is enabled. However, the control does not allow you to use the mentioned keys for keyboard navigation if the AccessibilityCompliant option is also enabled.