FLUID-838: Add ARIA support to Inline Edit

Description

dev-iteration37
dev-iteration39

Attachments

• FLUID-838_button.patch
• FLUID-838.patch

Comments

• Anastasia Cheetham commented 2008-06-27T22:29:22.000-0400

  According to the ARIA spec, the correct role seems to be "textbox" but the prominent ATs (e.g. JAWS) do not seem to respond to this.

  I have attached a patch file that would be appriopriate if the role is to be set to "textbox" - it also sets the "readonly" state to "false", to inform users that the value can be edited.

• Colin Clark commented 2008-06-28T08:48:21.000-0400

  Here's an alternative patch that sets the role of the text view to "button." I'll defer to Jonathan and Anastasia in terms of which one is best.

• Colin Clark commented 2008-06-28T08:50:23.000-0400

  Anastasia sent me a really insightful email about the various ARIA issues in regards to inline editing. She'll post to the list, but in the meantime, here's a summary:

  On 27-Jun-08, at 6:18 PM, a.cheetham@utoronto.ca wrote:

  I concur with Joseph and Jonathan that based on the descriptions in
  the ARIA specs, "textbox" is most appropriate ("Inputs that allow
  free-form text as their value"). You'll note that the pattern does
  state that you don't need to put this on actual form fields, and we'd
  only add it to the display element, not the <input>. I disagree with
  the suggestion to set "readonly" to true when the edit box is not
  active - in fact, I think it would need to be set to false, otherwise
  there is no affordance that the text is editable!

  Jonathan is also right that actually using "textbox" is ineffective -
  at least as far as JAWS is concerned. In both IE and FF, a role of
  "textbox" affects no change whatsoever in JAWS' behaviour. To me,
  that's a flaw in JAWS. I believe that Joseph will be communicating
  with various relevant people about this issue.

  As to a role of "button," the specs describe it as "Allows for
  user-triggered actions," which is not entirely off base here, if you
  twist your head to the side a bit and squint...

  In FF in general (i.e. no ARIA), JAWS does speak the display text
  when the cursor is on, and doesn't speak anything when the cursor
  is off.

  With ARIA:
  In FF, a role of "button" does cause JAWS to speak the diplay text
  when the cursor is off (whereas with "textbox" or nothing, JAWS is
  silent). But it also says the word "button" after the text, which is
  weird for the user.

  So basically, if you want code that looks correct, and does what the
  spec says, use the patch I attached to 838, and demo with IE. If you
  want something that says "button", use your patch, and demo with FF
  with the cursor off.

• Anastasia Cheetham commented 2008-07-17T20:51:38.000-0400

  I'll implement the 'button' version. It has no effect in IE, but then, nothing does. At least in FF, it causes the word 'button' to be spoken.