Items within a dialog window can be organized into dialog-item groups. When items are arranged in a group, the user can move from one item to another in the same group by using the direction keys. When the user presses a direction key, the focus will not shift to items in other groups within the dialog window.

Arranging items in groups is useful for radio buttons and check boxes. Although some control types also can be displayed this way, entry-field controls cannot; they process direction keys themselves, as do MLE, value-set, container, slider, and notebook controls.

The first item in a dialog-item group has the WS_GROUP window style. All subsequent items in the dialog template are considered part of that group until another item is given the WS_GROUP style, which begins a new group.

The WS_TABSTOP style often is used along with the WS_GROUP style. WS_TABSTOP marks the items that can receive the focus when the user presses the Tab key. Each time the user presses the Tab key, the focus moves to the next item that has the WS_TABSTOP style. Generally, the WS_GROUP and WS_TABSTOP styles are defined together for the first item of each group in the dialog template. This makes it possible for a user to press the Tab key to move among groups of items and to use the direction keys to move among items in a group.

The WS_TABSTOP style should not be used for radio buttons because the system automatically maintains a tab stop on any selected item in a radio-button group; therefore, when the Tab key is pressed in a group of radio buttons, the focus remains on the currently selected item.

The WS_GROUP and WS_TABSTOP styles are also useful for preventing the user from moving to a particular button when using the keyboard. For example, if the dialog window has OK and Cancel push buttons, they should be in the same group, with the OK push button as the first item in the group. The user can press Tab to select the OK push button but not the Cancel push button. To move to the Cancel button using the keyboard, the user first must press the Tab key to move to the OK push button, and then press a direction key to move the focus to the Cancel push button.