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Improving C# WinForms Accessibility: Issues with Keyboard Navigation in Custom Controls

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c# winforms accessibility C#

I'm refactoring my project and I've been banging my head against this for hours. Currently developing a C# WinForms application that needs to meet accessibility standards, particularly for keyboard navigation. We use custom controls that I designed, but they don’t behave as expected when navigating with the keyboard. For instance, the focus isn’t visible on these controls, making it hard for users relying on keyboard navigation to know which control is active. I’ve implemented the `Enter` and `Leave` events to manage visual cues for focus, like changing the background color of the control. Here’s a snippet from one of my custom controls: ```csharp protected override void OnEnter(EventArgs e) { this.BackColor = Color.LightBlue; base.OnEnter(e); } protected override void OnLeave(EventArgs e) { this.BackColor = Color.White; base.OnLeave(e); } ``` Despite this, the tab order doesn’t seem to work well. I’ve set the `TabIndex` property for each control, but they still jump around unexpectedly. Here’s how I’m currently setting those properties: ```csharp myCustomControl1.TabIndex = 0; myCustomControl2.TabIndex = 1; myCustomControl3.TabIndex = 2; ``` I even tried setting the `TabStop` property to `true`, but it didn’t resolve the issues. I’ve searched for best practices concerning keyboard focus and navigation in WinForms but haven't found a satisfactory solution. Is there a recommended approach or additional configuration I might be missing for enhancing keyboard navigation in custom WinForms controls? Any insights or examples would be greatly appreciated. How would you solve this? I'm developing on Ubuntu 20.04 with C#. Thanks, I really appreciate it!