I know that there has been a similar question asked here very recently, but I was wondering if it was possible to tab between buttons on default Mac OS X dialog boxes?
I already have the "All Controls" option enabled in System Preferences->Keyboard and mouse->keyboard shortcuts, but no joy.
Is there a specific dialog you're having trouble with? With "All controls" enabled I can tab around every control of every Mac OS X dialog I've tested just now.
If you enable Full Keyboard Access by setting it to all controls, you should be able to tab between options and select by hitting spacebar, at least for OS X 10.5.
It's not the answer to the question but I feel it's relevant. You can tab backwards through the controls and boxes using shift+tab.
When browsing with Safari, you can also tab between all HTML elements on the page using Option+Tab (otherwise Tab would only stop on the browser toolbar controls and quick bookmarks)
Not an answer, but may help point people to this page once this is solved. I am actually having the opposite problem, window elements (buttons, fields, frames) in many programs including the Finder are being framed by a bounding box, that I can tab through. I haven't found a way to turn this distracting element off--I must have turned in on with some key command.
in key bord preferences under "Keybord Shortcuts"
Full Keyboard Access: select "All Controls" instead of "Text Boxes and lists Only"