RE: UAIG and ARIA 1.1 spec issues regarding Combobox?

There are ways of hacking this to make it read correctly, but that's the problem, these are hacks, which shouldn't be necessary for this to work with the correct API mappings.

I'd recommend allowing aria-valuetext as a supported attribute for role=combobox, which would allow for this to be properly mapped and set upon simulated Combobox constructs.



-----Original Message-----
From: Birkir Gunnarsson [mailto:birkir.gunnarsson@deque.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 6:32 AM
To: Bryan Garaventa
Cc: W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: Re: UAIG and ARIA 1.1 spec issues regarding Combobox?

Bryan
RE your first point.
I agree with the problem of value not being set. This is a problem with comboboxes and screen readers.
You hardly ever see the value of a combobox in screen reader browse mode, you actually have to activate it to bring up the listbox to see which value is selected.
aria-activedescendant could be the solution, if it is allowed to point to a list that has been hidden (just like aria-labelledby does).
This would only work if the listbox is hidden using CSS, would not work if it is actually removed altogether from the dom.

Is there any way to treat an input field with a value )when list is not visible) as a text input, i.e. expose its value via the value property?
When listbox is closed:
<input type="textbox" role="combobox" size="30" value="value from listbox"> When open <input type="textbox" role="combobox" size="30" value =target of active descendant element> Thanks -Birkir



On 6/30/15, Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> There are a few things that I wished to ask about regarding the 
> accessibility tree mappings and usage of role=combobox, that appear to 
> be unclear.
>
> Firstly, within the accessibility tree mappings, it appears that the 
> only property values for a Combobox are Name and Description, but 
> there is no way of setting Value.
>
> If you are using a native input element, you get the Value property 
> for free, but if you create a simulated combobox using a span or div 
> element, you cannot set a Value property value for the Combobox.
>
> You can see this by comparing this first editable combobox at 
> http://whatsock.com/tsg/Coding%20Arena/ARIA%20Comboboxes/ARIA%20Combob

> oxes%20(Native%20Inputs,%20Editable%20with%20Substring%20Match)/demo.h
> tm
>
> With this second simulated Combobox using a span element at 
> http://whatsock.com/tsg/Coding%20Arena/ARIA%20Comboboxes/ARIA%20Combob

> oxes%20(Simulated,%20Readonly)/demo.htm
>
> Examining the accessibility tree in IE and FF, you can see the Value 
> property is set for the first, but not for the second.
>
> The closest association provided by the spec is to use 
> aria-activedescendant as the Value of the Combobox. However this 
> breaks when the associated Listbox is removed from the DOM as part of 
> a fully dynamic widget, then aria-activedescendant is null or left pointing at nothing.
>
> The second issue with the Combobox role, is where it states that 
> aria-haspopup is implicitly set to "true" on all Combobox roles.
>
> I understand why, since the dropdown effect is what this refers to by 
> connecting the attached Listbox.
>
> However, what would happen if I also had a right click ARIA Menu 
> attached to the edit field of a Combobox?
>
> Since setting aria-haspopup="true" would be pointless (since this is 
> implicitly "true" already), how would this be conveyed to the AT user?
>
> Thanks,
> Bryan
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 1 July 2015 15:42:53 UTC