beforeactivate

Overview Table

Synchronous	No
Bubbles	No
Target	dom/Element
Cancelable	No
Default action	?

## Notes

Remarks

Each document may have up to one active element. Set the active element with the setActive or focus methods. Using the setActive method has no effect on document focus. Using the focus method on an individual element causes the element to gain focus and become the active element. Using the focus method on a document that does not have the focus moves the document to the front of the display. Additionally, the document’s active element gains focus. For a given display, only one element has focus at any given time. Striking a key directly affects only the element with focus. Events fired by that keystroke may be scripted to affect other documents and child elements. With Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and later, focus on a Document, and the active element of a document can be managed separately. With Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and later, use the onbeforeactivate event to cancel setting an element as active. Canceling an element’s onbeforeactivate event has three different behaviors, depending on the action which fired the event.

When fired by a user clicking on the element, canceling will force the focus on the parent element and bubble up the chain until it hits a focusable element.
When fired by a user tabbing through the document, canceling will force the focus on the next element in the taborder. Shift-tab will force the focus on the previous element in the taborder.
When fired programmatically by the focus or the document.setActive methods, canceling will have no effect.

Note The onbeforeactivate event cannot be canceled when fired programmatically. Change activation from the event.fromElement to the event.srcElement. To invoke this event, do one of the following:

Click an element, other than the active element of the document.
Use the keyboard to move focus from the active element to another element.
Invoke the setActive method on an element, when the element is not the active element.
Invoke the focus method on an element, when the element is not the active element.

The pEvtObj parameter is required for the following interfaces:

HTMLFrameSiteEvents2
HTMLElementEvents
HTMLElementEvents2
HTMLLinkElementEvents
HTMLLinkElementEvents2
HTMLFormElementEvents
HTMLFormElementEvents2
HTMLImgEvents
HTMLImgEvents2
HTMLTextContainerEvents
HTMLTextContainerEvents2
HTMLAnchorEvents2
HTMLLabelEvents
HTMLLabelEvents2
HTMLSelectElementEvents
HTMLSelectElementEvents2
HTMLInputTextElementEvents
HTMLInputTextElementEvents2
HTMLOptionButtonElementEvents
HTMLOptionButtonElementEvents2
HTMLButtonElementEvents
HTMLButtonElementEvents2
HTMLMarqueeElementEvents
HTMLMarqueeElementEvents2
HTMLControlElementEvents
HTMLControlElementEvents2
HTMLMapEvents
HTMLMapEvents2
HTMLAreaEvents
HTMLAreaEvents2
HTMLTableEvents
HTMLTableEvents2
HTMLScriptEvents
HTMLScriptEvents2
HTMLStyleElementEvents
HTMLStyleElementEvents2
HTMLInputFileElementEvents
HTMLInputFileElementEvents2
HTMLInputImageEvents
HTMLInputImageEvents2
HTMLDocumentEvents

Syntax

Standards information

There are no standards that apply here.

Event handler parameters

pEvtObj [in]: Type: ****IHTMLEventObj****

Attributions

Microsoft Developer Network: [Windows Internet Explorer API reference Article]