an entry from

Piotr's R&D blog

A staple of modern GUIs is the "default button": within some context (e.g. a window or a web page), one control is singled out to be activated if the user hits the Enter key. This is normally a useful shortcut, and with a good tabbing arrangement between fields can let users get through moderately complex forms without resorting to the mouse. It is especially useful for small one-field forms on the web (e.g. search forms), where you want to type in a bit of text and use it as input for some command right away.

However, the technique can also be troublesome. If there are any multi-line text boxes in the form, it's never entirely clear to me if it's "safe" to hit Enter, or if doing so will submit the form. Worse, it's all too easy to hit Enter by accident, before you're done filling out the form, especially since some (admittedly rare) applications get you used to hitting Enter just to confirm each entry into a field. Herewith a simple suggestion: Enter should only activate the default button if said button is currently visible to the user. No?