Spatial Navigation

Introduction

Spatial navigation allows users to navigate between interactive elements on a Web page, such as links and form elements. Spatial navigation provides a convenient alternative to key listeners and script-based navigation systems. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that the links are properly placed to ensure a logical navigation layout.

How does it work?

When Opera tries to find the next link to highlight it not only takes the direction into account, but also the distance to the link. Thus, a link that is straight down from the current link might not be selected when navigating down. If, for instance, another link is to the left and below the current link, it may be highlighted when navigating down, if it is closer than the one straight below. This is illustrated in the figure below. Please note that this is a very simplified explanation of how spatial navigation works; the actual algorithms are quite complicated.

Spatial Navigation

Navigating down will not always result in highlighting the element directly below the current one.

To use spatial navigation in the CDK press and keep pressed the SHIFT key while using the arrow keys to navigate the page.