Orbeon Forms’s grids allow for controls to be laid out in rows and columns. Orbeon Forms by default navigates grid cells by rows first, then by columns, that is, in reading order (for Western languages at least).

Nothing prevents the user from filling out form controls in a different order, of course, but one place where this matters is the tab order, which is the order in which form controls are navigated when the user presses the Tab key (or Shift-Tab to go in reverse order).

With Orbeon Forms 2023.1, you have the option to change this default order, to obtain rows-first order.

You can set this in the Grid Settings dialog:

You can also set this in the Form Settings dialog to set a default value for all grids in the form:

Another place where this has an impact is the placement of grid cells on devices with a narrow display (for example smartphones) when all cells are stacked up following a responsive layout. The following drawings show the cells order, as well as the Tab key order followed:

Finally, you can also use configuration properties to set global defaults.

We hope that you will like this Orbeon Forms 2023.1 feature! For more details, see the documentation.