trap focus

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -5,6 +5,12 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/)
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/).
 
+## [6.5.1] - Unreleased
+
+### Added
+
+- Added `DOMNode.trap_focus` https://github.com/Textualize/textual/pull/6202
+
 ## [6.4.0] - 2025-10-22
 
 ### Fixed

src/textual/dom.py

@@ -228,6 +228,7 @@ def __init__(
         ) = None
         self._pruning = False
         self._query_one_cache: LRUCache[QueryOneCacheKey, DOMNode] = LRUCache(1024)
+        self._trap_focus = False
 
         super().__init__()
 
@@ -475,6 +476,17 @@ def workers(self) -> WorkerManager:
         """The app's worker manager. Shortcut for `self.app.workers`."""
         return self.app.workers
 
+    def trap_focus(self, trap_focus: bool = True) -> None:
+        """Trap the focus.
+
+        When applied to a container, pressing tab to change focus will be limited to the container's
+        children if one of the children currently has focus.
+
+        Args:
+            trap_focus: `True` to trap focus. `False` to restore default behavior.
+        """
+        self._trap_focus = trap_focus
+
     def run_worker(
         self,
         work: WorkType[ResultType],

src/textual/screen.py

@@ -743,9 +743,18 @@ def focus_chain(self) -> list[Widget]:
         # Additionally, we manually keep track of the visibility of the DOM
         # instead of relying on the property `.visible` to save on DOM traversals.
         # node_stack: list[tuple[iterator over node children, node visibility]]
+
+        root_node = self.screen
+
+        if (focused := self.focused) is not None:
+            for node in focused.ancestors_with_self:
+                if node._trap_focus:
+                    root_node = node
+                    break
+
         node_stack: list[tuple[Iterator[Widget], bool]] = [
             (
-                iter(sorted(self.displayed_children, key=focus_sorter)),
+                iter(sorted(root_node.displayed_children, key=focus_sorter)),
                 self.visible,
             )
         ]

tests/test_focus.py

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 from textual.app import App, ComposeResult
-from textual.containers import Container, ScrollableContainer
+from textual.containers import Container, ScrollableContainer, Vertical
 from textual.widget import Widget
 from textual.widgets import Button, Label
 from textual.widgets._placeholder import Placeholder
@@ -507,3 +507,44 @@ def compose(self) -> ComposeResult:
         assert isinstance(app.focused, Focusable)
         # Check focus chain
         assert app.screen.focus_chain == [app.query_one(Focusable)]
+
+
+async def test_trap_focus():
+    class TrapApp(App):
+        CSS = """
+        Screen {
+            layout: horizontal;
+        }
+        """
+
+        def compose(self) -> ComposeResult:
+            with Vertical(id="left"):
+                yield Button("1", id="one")
+                yield Button("2", id="two")
+            with Vertical(id="right"):
+                yield Button("A", id="a")
+                yield Button("B", id="b")
+
+    app = TrapApp()
+    async with app.run_test():
+        # Normal focus chain reports all focusable widgets
+        focus_ids = [node.id for node in app.screen.focus_chain]
+        assert focus_ids == ["one", "two", "a", "b"]
+
+        # Trap the focus on the left container
+        # Since Button#one is focused, the focus chain will be limited to the left vertical
+        app.screen.query_one("#left").trap_focus()
+        focus_ids = [node.id for node in app.screen.focus_chain]
+        assert focus_ids == ["one", "two"]
+
+        # Trap focus on the right container
+        # Since the right container doesn't contain a focused widget, we would expect no change
+        app.screen.query_one("#right").trap_focus()
+        focus_ids = [node.id for node in app.screen.focus_chain]
+        assert focus_ids == ["one", "two"]
+
+        # Un-trap the focus on the left container
+        # Should restore original focus chain
+        app.screen.query_one("#left").trap_focus(False)
+        focus_ids = [node.id for node in app.screen.focus_chain]
+        assert focus_ids == ["one", "two", "a", "b"]