Re: proposed drag and drop bug/issue statement

On 14.09.2010 20:55, Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote:
> based on my review of the list archives and past minutes, i think that
> the drag and drop issue can be summarized as follows:
>
> PROBLEM: HTML5 drag and drop is not accessible
>
> SOLUTION:
>
> To make drag and drop accessible, HTML5 must:
>
> * first adequately define what can be achieved via copy and paste using
> drag and drop;
>
> * define a copy and paste API in order to make drag and drop accessible;
> if that is not a viable solution, then the HTML5 drag and drop API MUST
> be amended to allow the workflow suggested for drag and drop in the
> WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices document:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/#dragdrop
>
> --- END PROPOSED TEXT ---
>
> this is the solution that gez suggested the HTML5 A11y Task Force
> consider, since there is no longer a "copy and paste API" in the
> HTML5 specification, and since the only mention of copy and paste
> found in dev.w3.org/html5 is an example included in the
> introduction to the MENU element:
>
> http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/interactive-elements.html#menus-intro
>
> which illustrates how to use the MENU element to create a toolbar
> styled as buttons with drop-down menues, in which the "Edit" button
> contains a "Copy" and a "Paste" item, controlled by javascript

This is a very reasonable solution that doesn't impose much work on the 
Task Force by referring an existing documentation. I'd support it.

To fully understand the issue I did a little research that I'd like to 
share with you:

A year ago there used to be a copy & paste API [1] in HTML5 right after 
the drag & drop definition.[2] Apparently it's been removed by the editor.

Gez Lemon's example [3] for keyboard accessible drag and drop implements 
the drag & drop ARIA best practices [4], eventually creating a <menu> 
for keyboard access plus adding tabindex as well as aria-grabbed and 
aria-dropeffect values. This is the best example yet and suggests that 
native support in browsers should work like this.

Remy Sharp tried to reproduce Gez' work [5], but the copy & paste API is 
as yet unsupported by browsers as it is not in the spec. He filed bugs 
with Mozilla [6] and WebKit [7]. Mozilla rejected the report because the 
API isn't in the spec any longer, Apple never replied.

Meanwhile the WHAT WG version doesn't list copy & paste either, but has 
it listed under "feature - awaiting more stable implementations".[8]

The historical basis for drag & drop is described in a MSDN document 
[9], although Ian Hickson found several inconsistencies in 2005 when 
trying to reverse engineer the API.[10] It's noteworthy Hixie wrote that 
mouse and key events do not seem to be dispatched during drag & drop 
which implicates that keyboard accessible drag & drop cannot use the 
drag & drop API at all.

While Peter-Paul Koch [11] criticizes the large (7) number of events, 
the default behavior that an element CANNOT be dropped, inconsistent 
naming of events, inconsistent implementation in IE8, and an additional 
CSS attribute in Safari (-khtml-user-drag) violating the paradigm of 
separation of presentation (CSS) and behavior, other authors applause 
the API design.[12, 13] Perhaps the event model isn't that bad after 
all, although it could be improved.

Still a copy & paste API implemented by browser vendors imitating Gez' 
experiment would be preferable since it takes the burden from individual 
JavaScript authors, ensuring consistent keyboard support among different 
websites and browsers.

Cheers,
   Martin


Further reading:

  [1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#copy-and-paste
  [2] http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/dnd.html
  [3] http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/accessible-drag-and-drop/
  [4] http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices/#dragdrop
  [5] http://html5doctor.com/accessibility-native-drag-and-drop/
  [6] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504533
  [7] https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27339
  [8] http://www.whatwg.org/issues/
  [9] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537658%28VS.85%29.aspx
[10] http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1115899732
[11] http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/09/the_html5_drag.html
[12] http://decafbad.com/blog/2009/07/15/html5-drag-and-drop
[13] https://developer.mozilla.org/En/DragDrop/Drag_and_Drop

Received on Thursday, 16 September 2010 20:02:06 UTC