Re: Allowed values of aria-autocomplete for the combobox role

Matt, Bryan,

On 2015-12-02 8:13 PM, Matt King wrote:
>
> I think a widget that has a textbox, a list, and acts like a select 
> would be a combobox with autocomplete set to list.
>
> Can you describe a widget that acts like a select, has a textbox, and 
> does not have autocomplete? A select has a list and allows only 
> selection of a value from that list.
>

Cynthia's point is that a <select> without @multiple renders as a 
combobox.  (The @size also has to be absent or not greater than "1").  
If the @multiple is present, then <select> renders as a listbox, but if 
it's absent it renders as a combobox.

In terms of the a11y tree, <select> with no @multiple and no @size has 
an AAPI role of combobox [1].  Furthermore, the combobox accessible does 
*not* have an autocompletion state.  It's as if aria-autocomplete="none".

> If typing in the textbox of such a widget doesn’t either complete 
> inline based on values in the list or narrow the list and allow 
> selection from the list, then what is the purpose of the textbox?

Suppose a developer implements a "find" function for a text editor using 
a combobox UI.  The first time it is used, there are no items in its 
list.  The user types some string in the textfield and hits enter.  
Aside from searching the text, the combobox also stores that string as 
the first entry in its associated list.  Over time, the combobox will 
collect all of the user's search strings.  At any given time, the user 
can either (1) type a string in the textbox and use that to search, or 
(2) pop open the associated listbox and choose one its options as the 
search string.

Suppose further that the developer does not implement any kind of 
autocompletion.  Users can only ever either type a string in the textbox 
for the search, or they can pop open the list and choose a previous 
string to search for again.  In that case, aria-autocomplete="none".


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html-aam-1.0/#el-select-combobox

-- 
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Received on Thursday, 3 December 2015 15:17:12 UTC