RE: Fw: drawSystemFocusRing, drawCustomFocusRing

Re-sending to get the mail archived on public-html-a11y@w3.org<mailto:public-html-a11y@w3.org> since Jatinder's original message bounced.

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329

From: Jatinder Mann
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:32 AM
To: Rik Cabanier; Edward O'Connor
Cc: Richard Schwerdtfeger; Paul Cotton; Janina Sajka; public-html-a11y@w3.org; Sam Ruby; jbrewer@w3.org; Dominic Mazzoni
Subject: RE: Fw: drawSystemFocusRing, drawCustomFocusRing

I agree with the feedback from Apple [1] that the current name is confusing due to the usage of "draw" and "ring". The user agent isn't drawing the focus, it's setting the focus. The appearance of a focus outline is a side effect; per spec, some systems require enabling accessibility features before the focus outline is shown. Also, the path of the focus outline doesn't necessarily have to be a ring, it can be any shape or path drawn using the existing 2d context API. I think a more appropriate name for these APIs would be setSystemFocusMapping and setCustomFocusMapping. If we want web developers to understand and use this feature, we should make the name clear.

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Rik Cabanier wrote:
> the a11y software should always be notified of the region where the focus ring would be located, but that is not in the spec.
I think those details are currently missing from the spec. We should add that to the spec.

>  should the browser scroll to the region that receives focus.
I don't believe magnifier tools are able to scroll within the user agent without the user agent supporting this feature. I think the spec should require this behavior.

> Why is there text for high contrast focus rings if no one implements them?
>From an accessibility point of view, is there value in having a custom focus ring method? If the user wants a particular focus ring, wouldn't they just change their system settings? If the user has decided to use a particular system setting, shouldn't we just respect the user's setting?

[1] https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2013-October/025685.html

Received on Tuesday, 12 November 2013 05:47:20 UTC