Re: Proposal to change documentation on tabindex to strongly discourage values greater 0

+1!



On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 9:11 AM, Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> +1!!!!!!!
>
>
> Matt King
> IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
> I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
> IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement
> Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
> mattking@us.ibm.com
>
>
>
> From:        Joseph Scheuhammer <clown@alum.mit.edu>
> To:        Marco Zehe <mzehe@mozilla.com>, public-html@w3.org,
> Cc:        W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>
> Date:        10/16/2014 07:47 AM
> Subject:        Re: Proposal to change documentation on tabindex to
> strongly discourage  values greater 0
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
> +1
>
> Regarding the proposed changes, there is a need to handle old markup
> that uses tabindex values greater than 0.  A possibility is that
> browsers treat tabindex=1+ as if it were tabindex=0.
>
> > [CC'ing Public PFWG list for info]
> >
> > Hello all!
> >
> > This is a proposal to declare tabIndex values > 0 invalid in the spec
> > and the validator, or at least strongly advise against the use of
> > positive integers values for this attribute.
> > Rationale: The tabIndex attribute is used to make items focusable with
> > the keyboard and programmatically. Currently, it takes three classes
> > of values:
> >
> >   * 0: The element is made focusable, and it is integrated into the
> >     tab order at its location in the DOM.
> >   * -1: The element is made focusable, but is skipped in the tab
> >     order, but can still take focus programmatically.
> >   * > 0: The items are put in the tab order first, and their order is
> >     determined by the actual value. Only if all those elements have
> >     been traversed via tab, does the order in the DOM take effect.
> >
> > This third class of values has in the past lead to nothing but
> > frustration among web developers and keyboard users, judging from
> > feedback I get in my day to day accessibility work. Due to author
> > error, which mostly stems from lack of awareness, tab order on many
> > sites that use tabIndex improperly is erratic and not user-friendly.
> > For further reading on this, I suggest a post published on the
> > Paciello Group blog by Léonie Watson in August of 2014:
> > http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/08/using-the-tabindex-attribute/
> >
> > Proposed changes:
> >
> >  1. Include explicit advice to not use tabIndex with a value greater
> >     than 0 in the next version of the documentation.
> >  2. Change the W3C validator to spit out an error on tabIndex values
> >     other than 0 and -1.
> >
> >
> > Associated bug: https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=27076
> >
> > --
> > Marco
>
> --
> ;;;;joseph.
>
> 'Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"'
>            - G. Bernhardt -
>
>
>
>