Tab key changes behavior

From: Dave
Country: {{{Country}}}
Sent: {{{Sent}}}
Subject: {{{Subject}}}

Question:

With SM16 (formerly said SM15, a mistake) I've noticed an extremely annoying bug whereby the TAB key, which normally allows one to switch between question and answer fields quickly, will instead suddenly only allow me to navigate between buttons. In other words, pressing TAB will stop selecting the question and answer fields and will only now cycle among buttons in the surrounding bars. Most notably it selects the Learn and Add New buttons as well as some other unknown buttons, in a cycle.

Previously the only solution I had for this bug was to close SuperMemo and start over.

Tonight I found the cause and workaround. I pressed CTRL+F to find some text, and after finding the item I wanted I pressed CTRL+F and typed in some random letters and pressed ENTER. I did this to clear the dynamic search so the matching text would no longer be highlighted yellow in items that I opened. Immediately after doing that I noticed that the TAB key behavior had again changed. Pressing CTRL+F again to open the find dialog box and then pressing ESC to close the dialog box reset the behavior, and the TAB key worked again normally. I then replicated this by searching for another term and trying the TAB key again and it again exhibited the buggy behavior.

CAUSE: Using the find dialog appears to leave a hidden form that captures the TAB key when pressed, causing the TAB key to only cycle among a few buttons in the UI. The problem appears to be the "Information" popup dialog that says "No elements containing text asdasdasd found."

WORKAROUND: Open the find dialog and close it again without searching for anything. This prevents the "Information" dialog from capturing the TAB key.

Hints

You could peek at Help:About for the version because it seems problem with Tab has been listed as bug fixed in SuperMemo 15 bug-fix list

-- I was mistaken when I originally wrote the question, I am using SM16 not SM15. Question has been updated. I must have been tired when I wrote it, my apologies. -dave

Answer:

This is either context dependent or sub-version dependent because the problem with Tab could not be reproduced in SuperMemo 16 or SuperMemo 17 (Windows 10). The best substitute is the dedicated shortcut for switching between components Ctrl+T. It might also be used to restore component focus in case you still prefer to use Tab.