RE: Operable Grid Cell

I agree that it would be great to find a way to convey gridcell type differences within interactive grid constructs.

For example, one grid may contain gridcell nodes that control editable strings, toggles, listboxes, and variable embedded control types within one gridcell as mentioned. Without a mechanism to identify the differences when arrowing between each, the key commands for each can’t be reliably conveyed.

From: Alexander Surkov [mailto:surkov.alexander@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 10:55 AM
To: Yura Zenevich
Cc: Joseph Scheuhammer; Alexander Surkov; W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: Re: Operable Grid Cell


Hi. I think I prefer improving ARIA markup flexibility over introduction the new roles. So being able to specify bunch of roles could be a nice solution here, like role="gridcell button". Also I like the idea to extend list of allowed attributes for roles like having aria-pressed on gridcell would point out the gridcell also has button behavior. (It might not work for this particular case since aria-pressed is used for toggle buttons though).
On Sep 29, 2014 10:50 AM, "Yura Zenevich" <yzenevich@mozilla.com<mailto:yzenevich@mozilla.com>> wrote:
Hello everyone,

I am currently looking at numerous calendar widget implementations that have month views that look like grids. ARIA roles grid and gridcell are used in some of these implementations. The user is able to click/tap each grid cell to get access to the list of events for a particular date. The AT user, however, will not be able to perform this interaction with the out of the box implementation:

when working with operable lists, the implementer will generally opt in for using 'listbox' and 'option' roles in favour of static list and listitem. However, there's no such alternative when using 'grid' and 'gridcell'.

The author would have to add extra workarounds (via event handlers on specific grid cells instead of using event bubbling, etc) to make it operable by the ATs. It would be really great if it was possible via the readily available attributes in the HTML.

Some possible solutions are as follows:

* Using a new gridcelloption role or similar (just like option in the listbox)
* Using an aria-pressed attribute, that would indicate that the grid cell is operable, if present (both with true and false values).

Perhaps there are other working implementations our there that you might know of?

Thanks

Yura Zenevich
Mozilla