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Are there any guidelines for which controls in mac apps should be able to take the focus, by navigating to them by hitting the tab key?

I just checked the system preferences app, and barely any controls seem to do this - for example, in the "Displays" section, the only two that take the focus are the search box and list of resolutions. Is it expected that the other controls cannot be manipulated with the keyboard, or is there some other way?

Colen
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This behaviour is a user setting governed by System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts:

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Glorfindel
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  • Thanks! Is there a way to get the state of this setting programatically? – Colen Oct 21 '11 at 01:04
  • @Colen I thought that ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist would keep that setting under com.apple.preference.keyboard.configkeys.trianglestate.fullkeyboardaccess but my tests seem to show that it’s not stored there. :-/ –  Oct 21 '11 at 01:33
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    I did some googling and found this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6643679/how-do-i-programmatically-determine-if-full-keyboard-access-mode-is-on-in-maco Apparently it's a secret! – Colen Oct 21 '11 at 05:02