RE: @inert and @aria-inert for disambiguating modal states

Matt, would it be worth filing a bug with FS regarding the handling of role=dialog in FF? This functionality goes against the guidance at
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/#dialog_nonmodal


From: James Nurthen [mailto:james.nurthen@oracle.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 12:40 PM
To: public-pfwg@w3.org
Subject: Re: @inert and @aria-inert for disambiguating modal states

I see the need for a developer to state whether their dialogs are modal or not.

In the Modal case, for AT which uses a virtual buffer model, it would allow the AT to prevent the user from interacting with the base page using the virtual buffer when a modal dialog is open. If the dialog is not modal then AT should allow interaction with the base page.

JAWS does this today for the dialog role but IMO this is not correct because dialogs do not have to be modal.

I don't care how this problem is solved. aria-inert seems like one possible solution, but alternatively there could be an aria-modal property on the dialog role - or even a new role entirely for modal dialogs.

Regards,
James
On 11/6/2014 10:08 AM, Dominic Mazzoni wrote:
On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 10:01 AM, James Craig <jcraig@apple.com<mailto:jcraig@apple.com>> wrote:
On Nov 5, 2014, at 11:17 AM, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com<mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com>> wrote:

> Dominic, @inert is an indicator of state - like aria states and properties. It does not have to do the actual function.

This is a false statement. @inert is useless if it does not provide the function. By the same logic, I can see no possible way that @aria-inert would be useful or even possible to implement.

Exactly, I don't see any purpose in @aria-inert that reports to AT and doesn't actually do anything. What is the AT supposed to do if events fire on nodes that have aria-inert=true?


--
Regards, James

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