Re: Tooltips on element focus

Summary: Yes, this should be done by implementing guidelines, but a
workaround is better than nothing and often useful in its own right.

details:

There are three basic possiblities. You build a browser, or you make
workarounds, or you write a language where there are tooltips built in.

If you do take the third option, you still need a browser that implements it.
So we are back to building a browser that does implement guidelines, or
writing workarounds to make existing browsers do the right thing.

I agree that getting browser makers to implement according to standards is
something important. In this case the requirement is covered by the User
Agent Accessibility Guidelines - the checkpoint in the current 14 July draft
is as follows:

Checkpoint 1.1 Full keyboard access. (P1) 

1.	Ensure that the user can operate through keyboard input alone any
user agent functionality available through the user interface.
For both content and user agent .

This has been in the guidelines drafts in a more or less unchanged form for
several years, and should not be news. But it is clear that some of these
functionalities have been missed, and some of them are more dificult than
other to implement in any particular browser.

Demonstrating that something can be done in a workaround is helpful when
approaching a browser developer and asking them to implement something, and
is useful for people who are in a hurry to have a functionality available.

cheers

Charles

On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote:

  javascript workarounds for a developer are not the issue I am addressing.
  It is enabling authors and users to use tooltips if they desire and via a
  keyboard.
  This is not helped by individual sites using workarounds, but does relate to
  guidelines and implementation.

  jonathan chetwynd
  IT teacher (LDD)
  j.chetwynd@btinternet.com
  http://www.peepo.com         "The first and still the best picture directory
  on the web"


-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Received on Friday, 27 July 2001 04:58:24 UTC