ASP.NET MVC Grid Keyboard Navigation

Keyboard navigation provides all web and app users with a fast keyboard-only navigation capability and is also part of the web accessibility features—it enables users with disabilities to fully control their website or app access through the keyboard.

By default, users can only navigate to links, buttons, and form controls with a keyboard. The navigation order in which interactive items receive keyboard focus has to be logical and intuitive. Generally, keyboard navigation logic needs to follow the visual horizontal and vertical flow of the page, for example, left to right and top to bottom, header first followed by the main and then the page navigation.

The Data Grid keyboard navigation is enabled by default, as demonstrated in this demo.

The Grid supports the following keyboard shortcuts:

Focus

• Alt + W Focuses the component.

Actions Applied to the Data Grid Header

• Enter Sorts by the column.
• Alt + Down Opens the filter menu.
• Esc Closes the filter menu.
• Tab Navigates through the elements in the filter menu (default browser behavior).
• Shift + Tab Same as Tab, but in reverse order.
• Ctrl + Left Arrow Reorders the column with the previous one.
• Ctrl + Right Arrow Reorders the column with the next one.

Actions Applied to the Data Grid Table

• Arrow Keys Navigate over the cells.
• Enter On a group row toggles the expand and collapse state.
• Page Up Pages to the previouse page.
• Page Down Pages to the next page.
• Space Selects the row holding the currently highlighted cell.
• Ctrl + Space (For the multiple selection mode) Selects or deselects the current row while persisting the previously selected ones.
• Shift + Space Performs range selection, selects all the rows between the last selected one (with Space or a mouse click) and the one holding the focused cell.
• Shift + Arrow Keys (For the multiple selection mode) Adds the row which holds the focused cell to the selection.
• Ctrl + Home Focuses the first focusable element inside the body.
• Ctrl + End Focuses the last focusable cell in the last row.
• Home Focuses the first focusable cell in the row.
• End Focuses the last focusable cell in the row.
• Ctrl + Space Groups or ungroups the focused column.