- From: STELZER,MELINDA (Non-HP-PaloAlto,ex1) <melinda_stelzer@non.hp.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 16:42:05 -0500
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
I was reading the discussion below concerning two different ways of handling pages that use a dropdown, or "combo box" control as a navigation tool. In one method, the user must press the form button to cause the browser to go to the new destination, and in the other method, the "OnChange" javascript event causes the choice to take effect as soon as the selection is made. I am trying to assess whether using the OnChange event to activate dropdown navigation controls is accessible or not. According to Charles, Jaws users often have problems with it. There is a work around: pressing "ALT-DownArrow" will produce the effect of pressing the mouse button and holding it, and allow the user to subsequently browse the dropdown with the arrow keys, without activating the OnChange event. Freedom Scientific says their users generally know this technique. Is it true? Do other assistive tools have problems with the OnChange method of activating dropdown navigation? -----Original Message----- From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org] Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 7:19 AM To: David Woolley Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; cturne@essex.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fw: [webwatch] Fw: [htmldesigners] What's the difference visually?... Yes, what happens for a mouse user is that they click on the box (equivalent in explorer to alt-down arrow) and then scroll up und down the list until they have selected the item tehy want, at which point they release. Usually there is no visual difference - the following button is often provided, but a javascript frees the user from having to click it. I think that the problem is not with HTML, but with browsers that force an onChange event to be fired when you try to select with the arrow keys, instead of waiting for you to move out of the combobox before registering whether you have changed the selected item. I don't know how many browsers have this problem, although I have noted it is a common experience for users of Jaws with IE. cheers Charles McCN On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, David Woolley wrote: > > kind of comboboxes which only activate when you press some button > after > > them, as opposed to the ones which activate as soon as you press > cursor > > down. I mean what would a mouse-user do with these different kinds of This sounds like a case of Document Object Model (popularly called JavaScript) onchange events being used. The change wouldn't be recognized until the mouse button was released. It's not an HTML problem, but a designer problem (designing only for clicking with a mouse). Plain HTML will not do this. -- 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 Tuesday, 18 December 2001 16:42:40 UTC