Click and focus behavior across browsers & OSes

survey.md

Test apparatus: http://jsfiddle.net/hRub4/

(Windows = Windows 8.1 desktop)

• Windows Chrome 39
  • Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
• Windows Firefox 30.0
  • Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
• Windows Internet Explorer 11
  • Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
• Opera 12.12 on Windows 7
  • Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click; can NOT be focused via keyboard tabbing (even with tabindex)
• Opera 12.16 on Mac OS X
  • Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click; requires tabindex to be focused via keyboard tabbing
• Opera 12.16 on Linux
  • Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click; can NOT be focused via keyboard tabbing (even with tabindex)
• Mac OS X Chrome 39
  • Button focuses on click
  • Anchor focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
• Mac OS X Firefox 30.0
  • Button does NOT focus on click (even with tabindex); can be focused via keyboard tabbing
  • Anchor focuses on click; can NOT be focused via keyboard tabbing (even with tabindex)
    • To get keyboard tabbing to work, the user must change System/Firefox preferences (see http://stackoverflow.com/a/11713537); the webpage author can't do anything about it (barring the use of hacky JavaScript)
• Mac OS X Safari 7.0.5
  • Button
    • can be focused by Option+Tab-ing
    • can NOT be focused by clicking (even with tabindex)
  • Anchor can be focused by:
    • Option+Tab-ing
    • Clicking, but ONLY when the anchor has a tabindex
• iOS Safari 7.0.4
  • Button can NOT be focused via tapping (even with tabindex)
  • Anchor can be focused via tapping, but ONLY when the anchor has a tabindex

This data is now mostly documented on MDN:

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/button#Clicking_and_focus (diff)
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a#Clicking_and_focus (diff)

OS X 10.11.1, Safari 9.0.1: Button can NOT be focused by clicking or tabbing (even with tabindex)

Awesome list. Would be cool to have links fo bug reports for the offending platforms.

Ran across the button focusing issue on Firefox 57 on macOS 13 today, thanks for the list.

input type radio is effected similarly to buttons on Firefox 58 in OSX - clicking does not focus, but tabbing does.

OS X 10.13.5,Safari 11.1.1 (13605.2.8): Button can't focused by tabbing or clicking (even with [tabindex])

OS X 10.13.6, Safari 11.1.2 (13605.3.8): Button can't focused by tabbing or clicking (even with [tabindex])

macOs 11.1 with Firefox 89:
Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
Anchor focuses on click; can NOT be focused via keyboard tabbing

(button click is different than last reported)

macOs 11.1 with Safari 14.0.2 👉 same as last reported
macOs 11.1 with Chrome 91 👉

• Button focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing
• Anchor focuses on click and via keyboard tabbing