RE: Seeking guidance...

Dear Chris,

Thanks for doing this work!
Your experiment demonstrates the problem.  The HTML 4.01 specification for
onFocus is BROKEN.  In order to get things to work properly, a page author
has no choice but to redundantly code for onMouseOver AND onFocus.  The good
news is that pages can be coded to improve keyboard access.  The bad news is
that we don't yet have attributes that are device neutral.

Bruce


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Atkinson [mailto:cwa@pipeline.com]
> Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2000 12:15 AM
> To: Bruce Bailey
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Seeking guidance...
>
>
> Dear Bruce:
>
> I have found that this works if one uses the [TAB] key to move through the
> DIVs. The reason it (also) works when you click it is because the focus
> shifts to the clicked item upon pressing down of the mouse button.
>
> I believe that onFocus is (supposed to be) a functional replacement for
> onMouseOver for people who are navigating solely by keyboard. As
> an example,
> for a user of a visual browser navigating via keyboard instead of a mouse,
> the onFocus function could give the same visual cues as onMouseOver does.
> Since the focus psuedoclass is implemented only in Opera (and since the
> dotted "focus" line in both IE and NN is damned hard to see),
> this could be
> an important functionality.
>
> Anyway, I have created another laboratory page at
> www.pipeline.com/~cwa/onFocusExperiment2.html.
>
> The first part plays around with the onFocus, onBlur, onMouseOver,
> onMouseOut and onClick events. A couple of things to note: first,
> because of
> MS event bubbling, the mouseout is triggered when the mouse moves out of a
> paragraph within the DIV. Second, as you noted, the code only
> works in IE4+.
> (I could probably cobble together a DOM1 version, but then that would only
> work in IE5.)
>
> The second part shows a mockup implementation of
> onFocus/onMouseOver parity.
> It emulates an the a:hover psuedo-class by bolding the font on
> mouseover/focus and returning it to normal on mouseout/blur. (I have also
> thrown in onKeyPress/onClick parity for WCAG compliance, as well
> as fallback
> non-JavaScript navigation (for this mockup, to my prior experiment page).)
>
> This psuedo-psuedo-class will, of course, do nothing for
> screenreader users
> (anymore than a:hover does). I am concerned however, that it do no ill as
> well as no good.
>
> One problem is that after the script has run, focus remains on the <A>.
> Since the focus remains there, the text remains bolded. Thus, it
> looks like
> the mouseover is broken, potentially confusing visual browser users. The
> solution is easy enough: blur the calling object via script. I have done
> this in the second version, but I fear side effects from removing
> the focus
> on screenreader users.
>
> I would appreciate any thoughts anyone has on the foregoing, or
> suggestions
> for any other experiments I should run.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Bailey [mailto:bbailey@clark.net]
> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 9:47 AM
> To: Christopher Atkinson
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Seeking guidance...
>
>
> Dear Christopher,
>
> Thanks very much!
>
> I have tried this only with 5 on the PC.  A few other comments...
>
> The onBlur alert did not work for me until I added another DIV after it.
> Yours works fine, so I am not sure what is up with that.
>
> Works ONLY with IE (not just because Navigator is lame) because of the
> .innerText DOM reference.
>
> Page does not validate since DIV does allows neither onBlur/onFocus NOR
> tabindex attributes!
> Effect works ONLY by when clicking with the mouse.  I thought onFocus was
> suppose to be a functional replacement for onMouseOver?
>
> Could you quote Steven's message (that you were replying to) to the WAI IG
> list?
>
> Thanks again,
> Bruce Bailey
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
> > Behalf Of Christopher Atkinson
> > Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 11:01 PM
> > To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: Seeking guidance...
> >
> >
> > Dear Steven:
> >
> > If IE Mac 5 displays the behavior you describe, it would be a
> > bug. According
> > to Microsoft's SDK for IE 5, onfocus and onblur are available
> on IE Mac as
> > of IE Mac 4. As far as I can tell from my experiments on IE 5 PC and
> > Microsoft's documentation, as long as the DIV has its TABINDEX set, you
> > should be able to use onfocus and onblur.
> >
> > The following works as expected in IE PC 5:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > Since I do not know anything about how screenreaders or other assistive
> > technologies work, I have prepared two DIVs, one with text
> change and one
> > with alert in the hopes that one of the approaches will work.
> The text in
> > the particular DIV describes the intended effect. If there is some other
> > effect that is needed to test this against any particular
> technology, tell
> > me and I will add another DIV.
> >
> > If you would like to try this online rather than cutting and
> > pasting, please
> > go to http://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/onFocusExperiment.html.
>

Received on Monday, 10 April 2000 11:25:08 UTC