dijit/focus

Author:Colin Snover, Bill Keese

Introduction

dijit/focus is a utility module that is used to manage focused nodes and widgets on a page. It can be used to track changes to the currently focused node/widget, register and unregister handlers for detecting focus changes in windows and inline frames, and programmatically focus nodes.

Until Dojo 2.0, requiring dijit/focus will also create a dijit.focus function with the same semantics as focus.focus.

Usage

Focusing an element

require([ "dijit/focus", "dojo/dom", "dojo/domReady!" ], function(focusUtil, dom){
  focusUtil.focus(dom.byId("foo"));
});

Note that this function only accepts DOM nodes, not widget instances. The element to focus must also be focusable (a form element, or another element with a tabindex attribute).

Unfocusing an element

require([ "dijit/focus" ], function(focusUtil){
  focusUtil.curNode && focusUtil.curNode.blur();
});

Determining the currently focused element

require([ "dijit/focus" ], function(focusUtil){
  var activeElement = focusUtil.curNode; // returns null if there is no focused element
});

Watching for focus changes

require([ "dijit/focus" ], function(focusUtil){
  var handle = focusUtil.watch("curNode", function(name, oldValue, newValue){
    console.log("Focused node was", oldValue, "now is", newValue);
  });
});

Note that two changes will occur when element focus changes: the first change will be from the old element to null, and the second change will be from null to the new element.

Tracking active widgets

At any point in time there is a set of (for lack of a better word) “active” or “focused” widgets, meaning the currently focused widget and that widget’s ancestors. “Ancestor” can mean either DOM ancestor (ex: TextBox –> Form), or a logical parent-child relationship (ex: TooltipDialog –> DropDownButton).

For example, if focus is on a TextBox inside a TabContainer inside a TooltipDialog triggered by a DropDownButton, the stack would be TextBox –> ContentPane –> TabContainer –> TooltipDialog –> DropDownButton.

The activeStack[] parameter indicates this set of widgets, and an app can monitor changes to activeStack[] by:

require([ "dijit/focus" ], function(focusUtil){
  focusUtil.watch("activeStack", function(name, oldValue, newValue){
    console.log("Focused widget + ancestors: ", newValue.join(", "));
  });
});

An app can also monitor widget-focus / widget-blur events to tell when widgets enter or leave the stack:

require([ "dijit/focus" ], function(focusUtil){
  focusUtil.on("widget-focus", function(widget){
    console.log("Focused widget", widget);
  });
  focusUtil.on("widget-blur", function(widget){
    console.log("Blurred widget", widget);
  });
});

Listening for focus changes in iframes

If you don’t register an iframe, when focus changes to elements within the iframe, it will not be correctly picked up by dijit/focus (curNode will remain null). Registering the iframe allows dijit/focus to determine which iframe currently has focus, but does not tell you which specific element inside the iframe has been focused.

require([ "dijit/focus", "dojo/dom" ], function(focusUtil, dom){
  // when elements in myIframe are focused, curNode will point to myIframe
  var handle = focusUtil.registerIframe(dom.byId("myIframe"));

  // we can also unregister the iframe later
  focusUtil.unregisterIframe(handle);
});
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