Keyboard support

You can enable keyboard navigation in the RadGrid control by setting the ClientSettings.AllowKeyboardNavigation property to True (its default value is False) as well as test it in the Keyboard Support demo demo. Currently the following features are supported:

• Access Keys: An access key is a key combination (e.g. Alt+F) that lets the user move focus to the grid and subsequently use the Up and Down arrow keys for navigation. The access key is defined using the AccessKey property. For example, setting the AccessKey property to "F" enables users to move focus to the grid by typing Alt+F.

• FocusKey:To specify the key combination that focuses the grid you need to set the FocusKey in the KeyBoardNavigationSettings tag property -the first key is preset to [CTRL] by design.

• InitInsertKey: Setting this property provides a shortcut for opening RadGrid insert form. The first key is preset to [CTRL] by design.

• RebindKey: Allows the users to rebind RadGrid. The first key is preset to [CTRL] by design.

• AllowActiveRowCycle:To allow the active row to cycle to the beginning upon having reached the end of the grid table, you have to set ClientSettings -> KeyboardNavigationSettings -> AllowActiveRowCycleproperty to true.

• Arrowkey Navigation: When arrow key navigation is enabled, users can navigate the rows of the grid using the up and down arrow keys.

• Selection: Users can select rows by pressing the [SPACE] key.

• Multi rows selection: When RadGrid AllowMultiRowSelection property is set to true, users can use the [CTRL] and [SHIFT] keys to simulate Windows Explorer-like selection.

• Editing: When editing is enabled, users can edit rows hitting the [ENTER] key. Then to update/insert rows they can use the [ENTER] key again. And to exit edit/insert mode without saving any changes, they can hit the [ESC] key.

If controls inside the grid use the same keys and combinations as the grid, and do not prevent (consume) the keydown event, you may get unexpected behavior. For example, rows may be changed in the batch edit mode while the user is attempting to navigate through a combo box list.

To prevent this, you can set the ClientSettings.AllowKeyboardNavigation property of the grid to false. Alternatively, use widgets and code that prevents the keyboard event propagation. For example, replace RadComboBox with RadDropDownList, which prevents the up and down arrows from propagating.

Whether a control should prevent the propagation of the keyboard events is a gray area and some controls may do that, while others do not. This is highly specific to each control and to each key.

See Also

• Cancel Enter and Arrow Key Press
• Keyboard Support demo