I often cycle through my Firefox tabs using Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab. But whenever it reaches a tab that is running a Flash (or similar) plugin, Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab won’t work anymore, because Flash has the focus and overwrites the general keybindings. I have to stop and click outside of the Flash app to continue the cycling.
Basically, I hate that Flash hijacks the keyboard focus. I never use it anyway, i.e. I never use the keyboard to control certain elements within the Flash app. Can I turn it off, meaning, can I tell Flash not to overwrite Firefox’ keyboard bindings?
Answer
Folks, be aware that this is a Flash bug!!! The Flash developers (I mean the developers who build flash) ought to be lined up and shot. This is a programming mistake typical of somebody first-day-in-the-real-world that I can’t believe has existed for years now (no mass outrage also shows how few use the keyboard, aka those people who do everything at a snail’s pace with the mouse, but don’t get me started on that).
When developing a plug-in/etc. you can subscribe to a OS event that gives you EVERY key a user hits. The plug-in/etc can examine the key, and then tell the OS, 1-I don’t need that key so process it normally, or 2-I’m doing something with that key so I’ll handle it and you ignore it. Most components don’t even subscribe to this event, but Flash is super arrogant, and telling the OS “I WANT EVERY KEY”. For Windows developers, this is ProcessDialogKey() or something of the like. Again they all ought to be shot, because they’re basically saying “hey the browser shortcut keys, I’ll eat those and do nothing with them!” Total idiots. Please note that this isn’t a FOCUS issue. Most components run just fine with the focus and let the OS process the keys the plug-in/etc doesn’t need (which is almost every key, I mean c’mon what keys does Flash need).
The other thing that is sooooo stupid about this, is anybody with any programming experience could walk into Adobe, pull up the code and fix this in 2 minutes.
This is not the only problem like this — if you have Windows 7 64bit, opening a new window in FireFox that has a flash on the page will set focus back to the first FireFox window. This shows a complete lack of understanding of Windows programming and super-stupid use of Windows API functions like “BringWindowToTop()” etc. Here’s a link:
Windows 7 FireFox Window Switching with Flash
One last comment: THIS IS NOT A FIREFOX, CHROME, IE PROBLEM!!!
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Frank , Answer Author : gltech
