For background - see bug #143223 <notabug>, especially comment 4.

The current behavior of the Tab key is that multiple cells are selected, the focus will "jump" around within the selection.

So far, this behavior makes perfect sense.


However - in the case of pasting (select one cell, put focus to another and then paste) - in my understanding, this means that the cell being pasted into, both is a selection of one cell, and also is focused.
This means that after pasting (and possible some other scenarios too), when there is a selection of one cell and also that cell is focused, then the Tab key have apparently no effect from the users perspective - because the focus is just moved back to the same cell again.

I tend to believe most users will assume the normal behavior is deselect and jumping to next cell to right. At least I did because I assumed this was a bug.

Proposal 1
Calc should detect when only one cell is selected and upon Tab key click, imediately deselect so that the next cell right get focused.
No extra user option necessary as the number of selected cells dictates Tab key behavior.

Proposal 2
Add an option under LibreOffice Calc, a  checkbox dictating the behavior when multiple cells are selected.
Behavior 1: As is today. The Tab key respect the cell selection, and focused cell can only shift within selection.
Behavior 2: When multiple cells (or just one having focus) are selected, all cells being de-selected and then the focus shift to next cell disregarding previous cell selection.

Suggestion for checkbox text on proposal 2 : "Tab key behavior: de-select before moving focus"