mojira.dev
MC-145691

Binding "Open/Close Inventory" to Tab only opens inventory

Moderator Notice

Sorry about this I have looked into it extensively and worked together with our accessibility team. Right now we need to have a certain degree of accessibility in the game or we are not allowed to do any more updates. One of the requirements is to be able to navigate in menus without using the mouse. Tab was implemented to have that functionality and it takes president in the inventory since there is a button in there that needs to be accessible. Trying to fix this issue has highlighted several issues with our system for assigning buttons to specific actions. If we fix the bug with tab not having to be bound to accessibility we have to make it possible to rebind the focus of buttons. Doing that will clash with showing players online on a server which is tab by default and to fix this we need to do more extensive work on our underlying system. Right now it is out of scope for us to fix this in 1.14 but is definitely something we want to fix further on why it is postponed.

– @unknown in this comment

The bug

Binding "Open/Close Inventory" to Tab only allows you to open your inventory. To close it you must push Esc. This does not happen with any other key.
For instance, if you bind this function to G, pushing G will both open and close your inventory.

Related issues

MC-145745 'TAB' Key no longer viable for Open/Close Inventory MC-145873 Tab key does not work when bound to inventory MC-145988 Remapped open inventory key not working properly MC-146084 Open/Close Inventory key does not close inventory. MC-146124 Tab in survival inventory would not close it MC-146212 Cannot Close Inventory MC-146382 Tab key bind for inventory doesnt close inventory MC-146413 Pressing the "Open/Close Inventory" button no longer closes the inventory. MC-146462 Inventory Exiting Prevented MC-146475 Inventory keybind change not working properly MC-146971 "Tab" key works to open the inventory menu but not close it MC-147029 Having the inventory key bound to tab will open the inventory but wont close it. MC-147045 Inventory Key Set To Tab MC-147205 I can't re-keybind my inventory MC-147482 Inventory close bug MC-147576 Open/Close inventory key does not close inventory MC-147629 Using TAB to open inventory MC-147958 Inventory Open/Close Key MC-148076 Inventory key doesn't close inventory when set to tab MC-148194 Setting "Tab" To Inventory Key Does Not Close Inventory MC-148223 The changed key does not work properly. MC-148269 1.14 inventory bug MC-148281 Binding TAB to open inventory wont let you close your inventory when pressing TAB again MC-148450 Rebinding Inventory Key to "Tab" does not allow you to close your inventory using the same button MC-148720 Inventory rebind key does not close inventory, only opens MC-148789 Tab key Inventory MC-148857 When inventory is set to 'Tab', you are unable to press tab again to close. MC-148972 changing controls MC-149021 Can't close inventory MC-149134 Inventory key bound to tab doesn't close inventory MC-149149 The inventary doesn't close. MC-149184 Can't close inventory when key is bound to tab MC-149194 open/close inventory is bound to tab, only opens inventory and must be closed with esc MC-149199 stänga inventoryt MC-149226 Tab key not working as "open/close inventory" MC-149227 Not sure if this is really a bug however in the new update when yuo set your inventory button to TAB it doesnt let you use the same button to close the inventory. MC-149241 inventory will not exit after clicking inventory button twice MC-149249 TAB inventory bug MC-149258 Inventory does not close using same button to Open MC-149270 Cannot close inventory MC-149299 can't close inventory with rebound key MC-149332 When setting "tab" to "open/close" inventory, only opens doesnt close MC-149478 Cant use TAB to close inventory MC-149543 Tab button isn't working? MC-149618 Inventory rebind won't close MC-149622 Inventory does not close with corresponding inventory button upon changing the keybind to "TAB" MC-149628 i can open inventory . but can't close inventory with same key. MC-149629 i can open inventory . but can't close inventory with same key. MC-149632 If Tab is set to open inventory, Tab does not also close the inventory. MC-149639 Unable to tab out of inventory MC-149698 Setting inventory toggle to Tab will not let you close inventory with Tab MC-149733 some keys not working for inventory MC-149839 Open/Close Inventory MC-149890 Inventory Issue MC-149906 Tab doesn't close inventory MC-150154 Open Inventory key issue MC-150172 Can't Press Key Again to Close Inventory MC-150225 Reassigned Inventory HotKey to "Tab" MC-150232 Cannot close inventory using Tab key MC-150313 Tab won't close inventory when used as inventory key MC-150431 Cannot close inventory when using "TAB" key! MC-150502 "Tab" button bug MC-150653 Open/Close not working for TAB MC-150662 Unable to close inventory using tab. MC-150698 No se cierra el inventario tras cambiar los controles MC-150704 Rebinding -inventory- to the "tab" key cannot be toggled to close/ affects chests MC-150766 problem with hotkey MC-150812 Rebinding Inventory to Tab MC-150868 If inventory is set to TAB pressing TAB doesnt close inventory MC-150915 Inventory Controls Broken MC-151145 Open/Close Inventory TAB does not work MC-151308 using tab for inventory issue MC-151484 Tab button does nothing but highlight the book MC-151538 Tab doesn't close Inventory MC-151822 "Tab" key does not work correctly as a inventory keybind MC-152064 Have to press ESC to exit inventory, pressing inventory key doesn't work MC-152077 Key Mapping Bug MC-152222 Инвентарь MC-152316 Tab cannot be assigned to inventory hotkey correctly MC-152670 i cant close my inventory with the open/close keybind MC-152795 Changes to the tab key in 1.14 MC-153394 Tab opens inventory but doesn't close it. MC-153491 TAB- Inventory MC-153809 Inventory is not closing on the custom hotkey tab MC-154319 Can only close inventory with ESC if inventory bound to TAB MC-154943 Using Tab as a hotkey does not work correctly. MC-154963 Inventory gui and the tab key 1.13.2 and above MC-155546 cant close inventory MC-156085 Binding "Open/Close Inventory" to Tab only allows you to open your inventory. MC-156225 When changing the 'open/close inventory' control to 'TAB', you cannot exit back out of the inventory with 'TAB'. MC-156590 Tab can't close inventory MC-157210 (1.14.3) Can't close inventory when using non-standard inventory key-bind. MC-157861 Keybinding Doesnt work MC-158155 TAB as inventory button does not fully work MC-158768 Inventory doesn't close MC-158790 TAB Hotkey MC-158792 Inventory not close-able with Tabulator key MC-159312 Inventory MC-160573 Closing your inventory doesn't work when open inventory is rebound to TAB. MC-162718 Assigning 'Tab' key to inventory doesn't close UI MC-164666 Can't drop item when in inventory with different drop key MC-165692 Remapping inventory button partially broken. MC-166976 Rebinding Open/Close Inventory won't close inventory MC-170315 Closing inventory doesn't work when changing the button MC-170565 tab doesn't work for inventory MC-171606 Rebind issue! MC-171764 Open/Close Inventory Bound to the Tab Key wont Close on Tab Press MC-171950 키지정오류 MC-184120 HOTKEY TAB (Slot 3) dont work in inventory MC-184178 HOTKEY TAB (Slot 3) dont work in inventory MC-189573 Tab does not work as an exit inventory bind MC-190353 TAB button can't be used to close inventory MC-190959 Can't close inventory with rebound key MC-192962 all updates after 1.13.x dont allow the player to use tab to close the inventory

Comments

Jack McKalling

Confirmed, I have this issue as well. It seems the UI accessibility focus system, which also uses the TAB, is interfering with the inventory hotkey.

migrated

I concur. It would be very useful if this feature could be disabled or remapped.

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 19w11b

migrated

By the way it does not even work for any other container like chests

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 19w12a

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 19w12b

migrated

Yep, pretty annoying change, especially when the new TAB accessibility features don't effect any of the inventory UI's apart from Command Blocks as far as I can tell. Hopefully they fix this, or at least make it so if you assign TAB to inventory it will disable the new changes as a compromise, something I could easily live with

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 19w13a

migrated

I noticed that pressing TAB when in the inventory highlights the recipe book button for some split seconds. So I figured they have coded a hotkey for opening/closing the recipe book but has not (yet) completed it. Because you can not find it in the controls section and it does not even work. 

The proper solution would be to finish this hotkey and I believe that would not be too hard. Otherwise, just retract this feature so we can use TAB for the inventory. Personally, I am so used to it that I will not play without it.

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 19w13b

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 19w14a

Freakin_Sweet

Extremely annoying! Can confirm for 19w14b.

migrated

Was able to re-create this in Minecraft 19w14b.

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14 pre-1

migrated

Can confirm still a problem in 1.14 pre-2

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14 pre-3

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14 pre-4

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14 pre-5

migrated

This problem seems to be caused by the tab key selecting the recipe book which overrides the close action. The simplest solution would be to disable the 'tab select' when the inventory button is bound to 'Tab'.

migrated

Confirmed for 1.14 release

migrated

Yes, same problem playing on Linux, 1.14 release.

migrated

Can confirm, 1.14 release on Linux.

JackRabbit

I guess the most convenient solution would be to make the key for cycling through the trades or select the recipe book configurable. Then you can see the (tab) key is already bound or just change it to another key.

migrated

Confirmed on macOS. 1.14 release

migrated

Same issue for me. Java Edition 1.14, running on Windows 10.

migrated

Same issue here, 1.14 on Windows 10 and Linux.

migrated

Same issue, hope it gets resolved, 1.14 Windows 10

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14.1 pre-1

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14.1 pre-2

migrated

just updated to 1.14, windows 7, no mods, same issue. reeeeeally annoying.

migrated

Confirmed for 1.14.1 release

Jack McKalling

Confirmed for 1.14.1

migrated

Confirmed for 1.14.1

 

migrated

Confirmed for 1,14.2 Prerelease 1

ZeNico13

Still in 1.14.2 Pre-Release 2

migrated

I understand the desire for this bug to get fixed, but you have no way to know it was postponed "for no reason" (comments being deleted have no bearing on that statement; they delete unhelpful discussion so they can focus on the bug at hand).

Also, the workaround is simple: press Escape to close menus for now. It's not that difficult to get used to, even if I would rather just be able to press Tab to close it as normal.

migrated

All they have to do to fix this is give us an option disable the ability to scroll through menus with the keyboard, or let us change the keys that do so. This should not have been a bug for a week let alone near 2 months. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

migrated

Sorry about this I have looked into it extensively and worked together with our accessibility team. Right now we need to have a certain degree of accessibility in the game or we are not allowed to do any more updates. One of the requirements is to be able to navigate in menus without using the mouse. Tab was implemented to have that functionality and it takes president in the inventory since there is a button in there that needs to be accessible. Trying to fix this issue has highlighted several issues with our system for assigning buttons to specific actions. If we fix the bug with tab not having to be bound to accessibility we have to make it possible to rebind the focus of buttons. Doing that will clash with showing players online on a server which is tab by default and to fix this we need to do more extensive work on our underlying system. Right now it is out of scope for us to fix this in 1.14 but is definitely something we want to fix further on why it is postponed.

migrated

Two possible solutions for this issue that I can think of, Maria.

  1. Have an option to rebind navigation from tab to another key.

  2. As previously mentioned, have an option to disable tab navigation within the Accessibility Settings that already exist within the game.

Having accessibility features is great and I applaud your work as a team for striving to add more, however this one in particular conflicts with many of the current user base. Both solutions will fix this while still having the feature in place.

The first is simple but may not be intuitive as tab is the navigation key across all software, which would make the second more desirable. Not many people who have tab set as their inventory key will need this accessibility feature so in addition to having it toggle-able, anyone with inventory bound to tab could have the feature disabled by default as opposed to the global default of it being enabled.

violine1101
  1. Not possible (yet) because of technical reasons, as explained by @unknown above.

  2. Probably not possible because Mojang is required to provide accessibility features. And it must be impossible to accidentally turn accessibility features off, since users who rely on it then couldn't re-enable it.

migrated

What if in addition to an option to disable/enable, there was a function key bound to toggle it? It would act in a similar manner to the way F11 toggles fullscreen. The client remembers that and it would work well for this I'd imagine. There are many vacant function keys available. So if someone accidentally disabled the feature, they could re-enable it by pressing the key?

migrated

Yeah, aren't there some free Function keys available? I feel like a way to toggle this Tab functionality (or even just offload it entirely onto an F key) would be a lot better than permanently removing a crucial game function on a very commonly used key.

migrated

The arrow keys also seem like a suitable replacement for using Tab.

Effectively, you could have both, and when Tab is rebound to open/close inventory, then Tab (and only Tab) would have its accessibility feature disabled. The arrow keys would still work as normal.

In text fields, this would have the effect of being able to focus into the field, and then to get out again, you would have to press up at the start of the text field (as it makes sense for the first press to act as Home on the first line) or down at the end. Left and right would simply shift between characters.

TheFlyingEpergne

Arrow keys being assigned to navigating menus would definitely make more sense than spamming the tab key, moreso than tab being commonly bound as the inventory open/close button

violine1101

These are all good ideas, but for the reasons that @unknown mentioned above, they won't be implemented until 1.15 earliest.

Right now it is out of scope for us to fix this in 1.14 but is definitely something we want to fix further on why it is postponed.

migrated

I've been using Tab for 9 years. You've killed it for me.

migrated

Are there any plans on fixing this or do I have give up hope of playing any updates past 1.13 for the foreseeable future? 

migrated

It's far from a perfect solution, but a friendly reminder that until they fix the issue (I don't see how it's so difficult to fix that 1.15 pre-releases are coming out with it) there is a work-around you can use to enjoy your game in the mean time. 

Razer Synapse (if you have a Razer keyboard), iCUE (if you have a Corsair keyboard), Logitech SetPoint (for Logitech keyboards), SteelSeries Engine (for SteelSeries keyboards), KeyTweak, Map Keyboard, Sharp Keys, ATNSoft Key Remapper, and probably many more made by all kinds of third party people and gaming keyboard manufacturers all let you remap specific keys for as long as you have the program open/the profile set. You can download one of these and temporarily swap Tab and E while playing, and it'll go back to feeling like normal.

 

We shouldn't need additional software to enjoy games, but if we have to...

BotPokey

You actually cant remap your keyboard with Logitech Software, you will need a third person software to do that...

So now im literally not playing my world in 1.14.4, is horrible (at least for me) to play with other configuration.

migrated

It shouldn't be terribly hard to get used to pressing Esc to exit menus. It's not ideal, but it's become second nature to me and only took a day or two.

BotPokey

I tried, i lost.

migrated

I lost as well

TheFlyingEpergne

We shouldn't have to get used to something that was previously a feature and now is not.

Also the reason it was changed (to allow the tab key to make menus more accessible) isn't even functional so it makes no sense to break it now.

migrated

Please prioritize this higher and make sure it makes it into 1.15.

migrated

Prio up please. I nearly totally skipped 1.14.x because of that bug.

violine1101

The reason for why this has not been fixed yet has been explained by @unknown in her comment above. Basically, the game needs to fulfil certain accessibility requirements, and fixing this bug seems to be fairly difficult with Minecraft's current GUI system if you don't want to break the ability to navigate through GUIs with Tab.

I'll ask whether the priority of this bug can be raised, but don't expect this issue to be fixed too soon.

migrated

Hi! any update on this bug? I've been waiting the entire year for 1.15 just for this.

violine1101

I don't have any news to share besides what I've written above. 1.15 will most likely not address this issue.

migrated

I don't believe that is a valid point Ethan we don't know that for sure, still i ask, why does this bug still have a low priority? Surely there are more people than just the 109 votes and 68 watchers that want this resolved.

We haven't been able to enjoy the game at the fullest extent, the possibility of freely changing our hotkeys is a must for the play ability and enjoyment of the game, not having it translates to waning degrees of usage.

Stating this, I propose a change in the priority to at least a mid level.

Ezekiel

There's been a lot of commenting on this ticket without additional information for diagnosing this issue. Just because you too are affected doesn't warrant commenting and emailing everyone else of that fact.

Mojang is aware of this ticket and its impact, which is the the purpose of the bug tracker. If you would like to contribute your name to the list, you may vote for the ticket which does not email everyone. Further discussion should occur elsewhere, like our reddit community or Discord.

migrated

Edit: I am very sorry Ezekiel, I didn't see your post until after I'd hit submit since I was typing before you posted yours.

 

I'm pretty sure Ethan has a valid point. Tab doesn't actually do anything but alienate players that have been using Tab as an inventory button for years.

 

As of right now, Tab literally doesn't do anything but highlight the recipe book button to be blue. You can't open the recipe book with it, enter, or any other key on the keyboard - you still have to move the mouse up to it and click it. (Technically maybe having the button blue makes it easier to see if you can't see the color green?) But once you've clicked it open with the mouse, Tab still doesn't do anything. It doesn't allow you to move through different items on the page, or tabs in the list... the only thing it does is turn the button blue... ...and also block you from using Tab as the inventory button.

 

It's quite literally making the game less accessible for a decent group of people (check the watchers and voters here, and do a quick search on Google/Minecraft Forums/Reddit. A lot of people are complaining) but doesn't actually help anyone.

 

Also, what I find most hilarious is the upper management. "Right now we need to have a certain degree of accessibility in the game or we are not allowed to do any more updates." sounds like a suit who has no idea what the game actually needs, but wants to announce to shareholders that they're making improvements to the game. "One of the requirements is to be able to navigate in menus without using the mouse" but yet you can't actually navigate the game without using the mouse. You can't open the recipe book (which as someone who has been playing since 2011... you don't need it to play the game anyway) or navigate through it, or craft anything with it. Or move items around in your inventory, or move items from the inventory to the crafting grid... you can only turn a button blue with Tab. Oh, and can no longer use it as a normal button.

 

I feel bad for the devs, I really do. I know it's not entirely their fault (they could make fixing a bug they introduced a higher priority). But it still comes off as making the game less accessible in the name of greater accessibility.

violine1101

This is not a discussion forum. All further comments that don't add any new information to the ticket will be removed. This issue has been effectively postponed until the UI system is rewritten, and complaining here in the comments won't change that.

migrated

Ok, let me add a suggestion to the ticket.

You don't need to rewrite the UI to fix this issue. In the "Controls" dialog, on the "Open/Close Inventory" line, (and possibly in others) add a warning icon (⚠️) when it is set to "TAB" (or some other key that interferes with accessibility like ESC, Enter, etc.) and add a (accessible!) note to the setting that states that this setting might interfere with accessibility. Then, if the user still agrees to go ahead and clicks done, make sure that it takes precedence to accessibility and closes the inventory.

I'm still playing 1.13 because of this issue.

migrated

Edit: Spelling and grammar

First, I'd like to follow up on Fozi's suggestion. I don't even think it needs to be a menu option. Just add something like "TabAccessibility = True" to the options.txt but don't have it appear in any of the ingame menus. So players who want to disable the Tab accessibility functionality have to make the conscious decision to disable it. Thus it will be impossible to accidentally turn it off, making it pass the guidelines Maria mentioned in the moderator notice.

And the second thing, for those annoyed with this issue, it appears a beautiful someone has made a mod to fix it (for 1.14.X). Interestingly this mod was posted yesterday. As far as I can tell it works. Here is a link: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/tab-inventory

migrated

So I've combined Fozi's and Ian's idea into a mod that is able to run on the latest Snapshot version.
Since modifying files like options.txt is really hard for an average user, I decided to use Fozi's idea and created a warning screen that shows up as soon as the player to tries to bind tab.

So in a way you can see this as an possible proposal on how to resolve this issue. 

https://github.com/0blu/TabInventory-Fabric

 

[media]
migrated

Just wanted to also say that you also cannot close the inventory with any of the mouse buttons, not even extra buttons (Button 4, Button 5, ect.) I don't know if this is its own issue or part of this one, but it kinda makes a no-keyboard run of Minecraft impossible haha.

ZeNico13

@Nutty171 I think it would be wise to make a new ticket for this

Jack McKalling

Confirmed fixed in 20w27a

migrated

mgatland

Confirmed

Low

Accessibility

binding, inventory, tab

Minecraft 19w11a, Minecraft 19w11b, Minecraft 19w12a, Minecraft 19w12b, Minecraft 19w13a, ..., 1.16 Pre-release 7, 1.16 Pre-release 8, 1.16 Release Candidate 1, 1.16, 1.16.1

20w27a

Retrieved