I have often used the mouse to put the focus on the first field of a web-form.
If you use firefox and the webpage takes care of the right control-tab-order, you only have to hit tab once to get into the first text-field. This is because the webpage itself does not have the focus by default. Using other browsers (e.g. IE) you may have to hit the tab key several times to get there.
So if you want to take this burden from the user of your web-site, use a java-script like the following:
[js]
[/js]
I am using this script on one of my own sites. It seems to work. But of course I can not give any warranty.
BTW: Can anyone tell me what’s the reason, why firefox does not set the focus on the main-panel itself by default?