JavaScript Data Grid: Keyboard Interaction

The grid responds to keyboard interactions from the user as well as emitting events when key presses happen on the grid cells. Below shows all the keyboards interactions that can be done with the grid.

Navigation

Use the arrow keys (← ↑ → ↓) to move focus up, down, left and right. If the focused cell is already on the boundary for that position (e.g. if on the first column and the left key is pressed) then the key press has no effect. Use Ctrl+← to move to the start of the line, and Ctrl+→ to move to the end.

If a cell on the first grid row is focused and you press ↑, the focus will be moved into the grid header. The header navigation focus navigation works the same as the grid's: arrows will move up/down/left/right, Tab will move the focus horizontally until the last header cell and then move on to the next row.

Use Page Up and Page Down to move the scroll up and down by one page. Use Home and End to go to the first and last rows.

Groups

If on a group element, hitting the Enter key will expand or collapse the group.

Editing

Pressing the Enter key on a cell will put the cell into edit mode, if editing is allowed on the cell. This will work for the default cell editor.

Selection

Pressing the Space key on a cell will select the cells row, or deselect the row if already selected. If multi-select is enabled, then the selection will not remove any previous selections.

Suppress Cell Focus

If you want keyboard navigation turned off, then set suppressCellFocus=true in the gridOptions.

Header Navigation

The grid header supports full keyboard navigation, however the behaviour may differ based on the type of header that is currently focused.

Grouped Headers

While navigating grouped headers, if the current grouped header is expandable, pressing Enter will toggle the expanded state of the group.

Normal Headers

Regular headers may have selection checkboxes, sorting functions and menus, so to access all these functions while focusing a header, you can do the following:

• Press Space to toggle the header checkbox selection.
• Press Enter to toggle the sorting state of that column.
• Press Shift+Enter to toggle multi-sort for that column.
• Press Ctrl+Enter to open the menu for the focused header.
• When a menu is open, simply press Esc to close it and the focus will return to the header.

Floating Filters

While navigation the floating filters header with the keyboard pressing left/right the focus will move from header cell to header cell, if you wish to navigate within the cell, press Enter to focus the first enabled element within the current floating filter cell, and press Esc to return the focus to the floating filter cell.

Example

The example below has grouped headers, headers and floating filters to demonstrate the features mentioned above:

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Custom Navigation

Most people will be happy with the default navigation the grid does when you use the arrow keys and the Tab key. Some people will want to override this (e.g. you may want the Tab key to navigate to the cell below, not the cell to the right). To facilitate this, the grid offers four methods: navigateToNextCell, tabToNextCell, navigateToNextHeader and tabToNextHeader.

navigateToNextCell

Provide a callback navigateToNextCell if you want to override the arrow key navigation.

navigateToNextCell = (
    params: NavigateToNextCellParams<TData>
) => (CellPosition | null);

interface NavigateToNextCellParams<TData = any, TContext = any> {
  // The keycode for the arrow key pressed:
  //  left = 'ArrowLeft', up = 'ArrowUp', right = 'ArrowRight', down = 'ArrowDown' 
  key: string;
  // The cell that currently has focus 
  previousCellPosition: CellPosition;
  // The cell the grid would normally pick as the next cell for navigation 
  nextCellPosition: CellPosition | null;
  event: KeyboardEvent | null;
  // The grid api. 
  api: GridApi<TData>;
  // The column api. 
  columnApi: ColumnApi;
  // Application context as set on `gridOptions.context`. 
  context: TContext;
}

interface CellPosition {
  // The grid column 
  column: Column;
  // A positive number from 0 to n, where n is the last row the grid is rendering
  // or -1 if you want to navigate to the grid header 
  rowIndex: number;
  // Either 'top', 'bottom' or null/undefined (for not pinned) 
  rowPinned: RowPinnedType;
}

type RowPinnedType = 
      'top' 
    | 'bottom' 
    | null 
    | undefined

tabToNextCell

Provide a callback tabToNextCell if you want to override the Tab key navigation.

tabToNextCell = (
    params: TabToNextCellParams<TData>
) => (CellPosition | null);

interface TabToNextCellParams<TData = any, TContext = any> {
  // True if the Shift key is also down 
  backwards: boolean;
  // True if the current cell is editing
  // (you may want to skip cells that are not editable, as the grid will enter the next cell in editing mode also if tabbing) 
  editing: boolean;
  // The cell that currently has focus 
  previousCellPosition: CellPosition;
  // The cell the grid would normally pick as the next cell for navigation.  
  nextCellPosition: CellPosition | null;
  // The grid api. 
  api: GridApi<TData>;
  // The column api. 
  columnApi: ColumnApi;
  // Application context as set on `gridOptions.context`. 
  context: TContext;
}

interface CellPosition {
  // The grid column 
  column: Column;
  // A positive number from 0 to n, where n is the last row the grid is rendering
  // or -1 if you want to navigate to the grid header 
  rowIndex: number;
  // Either 'top', 'bottom' or null/undefined (for not pinned) 
  rowPinned: RowPinnedType;
}

type RowPinnedType = 
      'top' 
    | 'bottom' 
    | null 
    | undefined

CellPosition

Both functions above use CellPosition. This is an object that represents a cell in the grid.

rowPinned: RowPinnedType;

type RowPinnedType = 
      'top' 
    | 'bottom' 
    | null 
    | undefined

The functions take a CellPosition for current and next cells, as well as returning a CellPosition object. The returned CellPosition will be the one the grid puts focus on next. Return the provided nextCellPosition to stick with the grid default behaviour. Return null/undefined to skip the navigation.

navigateToNextHeader

Provide a callback navigateToNextHeader if you want to override the arrow key navigation.

navigateToNextHeader = (
    params: NavigateToNextHeaderParams<TData>
) => (HeaderPosition | null);

interface NavigateToNextHeaderParams<TData = any, TContext = any> {
  // The key for the arrow key pressed,
  //  left = 'ArrowLeft', up = 'ArrowUp', right = 'ArrowRight', down = 'ArrowDown' 
  key: string;
  // The header that currently has focus 
  previousHeaderPosition: HeaderPosition | null;
  // The header the grid would normally pick as the next header for this navigation 
  nextHeaderPosition: HeaderPosition | null;
  // The number of header rows present in the grid 
  headerRowCount: number;
  event: KeyboardEvent;
  // The grid api. 
  api: GridApi<TData>;
  // The column api. 
  columnApi: ColumnApi;
  // Application context as set on `gridOptions.context`. 
  context: TContext;
}

interface HeaderPosition {
  // A number from 0 to n, where n is the last header row the grid is rendering 
  headerRowIndex: number;
  // The grid column or column group 
  column: Column | ColumnGroup;
}

tabToNextHeader

Provide a callback tabToNextHeader if you want to override the Tab key navigation.

tabToNextHeader = (
    params: TabToNextHeaderParams<TData>
) => (HeaderPosition | null);

interface TabToNextHeaderParams<TData = any, TContext = any> {
  // True if the Shift key is also down 
  backwards: boolean;
  // The header that currently has focus 
  previousHeaderPosition: HeaderPosition | null;
  // The header the grid would normally pick as the next header for this navigation 
  nextHeaderPosition: HeaderPosition | null;
  // The number of header rows present in the grid 
  headerRowCount: number;
  // The grid api. 
  api: GridApi<TData>;
  // The column api. 
  columnApi: ColumnApi;
  // Application context as set on `gridOptions.context`. 
  context: TContext;
}

interface HeaderPosition {
  // A number from 0 to n, where n is the last header row the grid is rendering 
  headerRowIndex: number;
  // The grid column or column group 
  column: Column | ColumnGroup;
}

HeaderPosition

Both navigateToNextHeader and tabToNextHeader use HeaderPosition. This is an object that represents a header in the grid.

You should return the HeaderPosition you want in the navigateToNextHeader and tabToNextHeader functions to have it focused. Returning null or undefined in navigateToNextHeader will do nothing (same as focusing the current focused cell), however, doing the same thing in tabToNextHeader will allow the browser default behaviour for Tab to happen. This is useful for tabbing outside of the grid from the last cell or Shift tabbing out of the grid from the first cell.

Example Custom Cell Navigation

The example below shows how to use navigateToNextCell, tabToNextCell, navigateToNextHeader and tabToNextHeader in practice.

Note the following:

• navigateToNextCell swaps the up and down arrow keys.
• tabToNextCell uses tabbing to go up and down rather than right and left.
• navigateToNextHeader swaps the up and down arrow keys.
• tabToNextHeader uses tabbing to go up and down rather than right and left.
• When a cell in the first grid row is focused, pressing the down arrow will navigate to the header by passing rowIndex: -1.
• When a header cell in the last header row is focused, pressing the up arrow will navigate to the first grid row by passing headerRowIndex: -1.
• Tabbing/Shift tabbing will move the focus until the first header or the last grid row, but focus will not leave the grid.

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Custom Master Detail Navigation

Master Detail Grids grids can contain Custom Details that have their own renderer and hence will need to implement its own keyboard navigation. An example of this can be seen in the Custom Details Keyboard Navigation Example.

Tabbing into the Grid

In applications where the grid is embedded into a larger page, by default, when tabbing into the grid, the first column header will be focused.

You could override this behaviour to focus the first grid cell, if that is a preferred scenario using a combination of DOM event listeners and Grid API calls shown in the following code snippet:

// obtain reference to input element
const myInput = document.getElementById("my-input"); 

// intercept key strokes within input element
myInput.addEventListener("keydown", event => {
    // ignore non tab key strokes
    if(event.key !== 'Tab') return;

    // prevents tabbing into the url section
    event.preventDefault();

    // scrolls to the first row
    gridApi.ensureIndexVisible(0);

    // scrolls to the first column
    const firstCol = columnApi.getAllDisplayedColumns()[0];
    gridApi.ensureColumnVisible(firstCol);

    // sets focus into the first grid cell
    gridApi.setFocusedCell(0, firstCol);

}, true);

Example: Tabbing into the Grid

In the following example there is an input box provided to test tabbing into the grid. Notice the following:

• Tabbing out of the first input box will gain focus on the first grid cell.
• When the first cell is out of view due to either scrolling down (rows) or across (columns), tabbing out of the first input will cause the grid to navigate to the first cell.
• Tabbing out of the second input box will have the default behaviour which is to focus the first grid header.
• When the first header is out of view due to horizontal scroll, tabbing into the grid will cause the grid to scroll to focus the first header.
• Shift-Tabbing out third input (below the grid) will have the default focus behaviour, which is to focus the last element of the grid. This element will vary depending on how many features have been enabled (eg. Row Pagination, Tool Panels, etc...).

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Keyboard Events

It is possible to add custom behaviour to any key event that you want using the grid events cellKeyPress (gets called when a DOM keyPress event fires on a cell) and cellKeyDown (gets called when a DOM keyDown event fires on a cell).

The grid events wrap the DOM events and provides additional information such as row and column details.

The example below shows processing grid cell keyboard events. The following can be noted:

• Each time a cellKeyPress or cellKeyDown is fired, the details of the event are logged to the console.
• When the user hits S on a row, the row selection is toggled. This is achieved through the cellKeyPress listener.

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Suppress Keyboard Events

It is possible to stop the grid acting on particular events. To do this implement colDef.suppressHeaderKeyboardEvent and/or colDef.suppressKeyboardEvent callback. The callback should return true if the grid should suppress the events, or false to continue as normal.

suppressHeaderKeyboardEvent

suppressHeaderKeyboardEvent = (
    params: SuppressHeaderKeyboardEventParams<TData>
) => boolean;

interface SuppressHeaderKeyboardEventParams<TData = any> {
  column: Column | ColumnGroup;
  colDef: ColDef<TData> | ColGroupDef<TData> | null;
  // The index of the header row of the current focused header 
  headerRowIndex: number;
  // The keyboard event the grid received 
  event: KeyboardEvent;
  // The grid api. 
  api: GridApi<TData>;
  // The column api. 
  columnApi: ColumnApi;
  // Application context as set on `gridOptions.context`. 
  context: any;
}

suppressKeyboardEvent

suppressKeyboardEvent = (
    params: SuppressKeyboardEventParams<TData>
) => boolean;

interface SuppressKeyboardEventParams<TData = any> {
  // The keyboard event the grid received 
  event: KeyboardEvent;
  // Whether the cell is editing or not 
  editing: boolean;
  // Row node for the given row 
  node: IRowNode<TData>;
  // Data associated with the node. Will be `undefined` for group rows. 
  data: TData | undefined;
  // Column for this callback 
  column: Column;
  // ColDef provided for this column 
  colDef: ColDef<TData>;
  // The grid api. 
  api: GridApi<TData>;
  // The column api. 
  columnApi: ColumnApi;
  // Application context as set on `gridOptions.context`. 
  context: any;
}

The callback is available as a column callback (set on the column definition). If you want it to apply to all columns then apply to the defaultColDef property.

Example: Suppress Keyboard Navigation

The example below demonstrates suppressing the following keyboard events:

• On the Athlete column cells only:

  • Enter will not start or stop editing.

• On the Country column cells only:

  • ↑ ↓ arrow keys are allowed. This is the only column that allows navigation from the grid to the header.

• On all cells (including the cells of the Athlete Column):

  • Ctrl+A will not select all cells into a range.
  • Ctrl+C will not copy to clipboard.
  • Ctrl+V will not paste from clipboard.
  • Ctrl+D will not copy range down.
  • Page Up and Page Down will not get handled by the grid.
  • Home will not focus top left cell.
  • End will not focus bottom right cell.
  • ← ↑ → ↓ Arrow keys will not navigate focused cell.
  • F2 will not start editing.
  • Delete will not start editing.
  • Backspace will not start editing.
  • Escape will not cancel editing.
  • Space will not select current row.
  • Tab will not be handled by the grid.

• On the Country header only:

  • Navigation is blocked from the left to right using arrows but is allowed using Tab.
  • Navigation up and down is allowed. This is the only header that allows navigation from the header to the grid cells.
  • Enter is blocked. This is the only header that blocks sorting / opening menu via keyboard.

• On all headers (excluding country):

  • Navigation is blocked up and down, but navigation left / right is allowed using arrows and Tab.

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