RE: Seeking guidance...a thread renewed?

On Sun, 21 Apr 2002, jonathan chetwynd wrote:

> Yes well, onmouseover onfocus and tab again; damn.
> Hope the following is a great example of why we need some work in this area.....

Your message would be more accessible if it had line-wrap.

> testing the new homepage http://www.peepo.com, with bobby, it helpfully pointed out that I had no onfocus events to replicate the onmousover events.
>
> onmouseover creates sound events to help users realise there is a link and what it might be.

If it's compaining in the context of <a href...> links, then it's
talking nonsense.  In fact it's probably talking nonsense anyway.
There's something depressingly mindless about assuming that the
character string "mouse" in a name makes an event inherently
device-dependent.  IMHO the authors of the Section508 guidelines
have done a decent job of distinguishing what really matters
amongst the onxxxxx scripting events.

> D.Clark: I also think that mouseover and onfocus are synonymous.

Disagree[1].  In the case of a form input, there is a clear logical
separation.  It is perfectly feasible, though not necessarily wise,
for a tabbing UI to implement the distinction.

>
> B.Bailey: the onFocus/onMouseOver script SHOULD occur when you TAB (and NOT require you to press enter).

Noting the SHOULD, I'd accept that as a valid view.  But IMO it wouldn't
necessarily be wrong to require some keypress, or other action
appropriate to a user's device.

[1] Disagree with the quote as-is; I haven't seen it in its original
context.

-- 
Nick Kew

Available for contract work - Programming, Unix, Networking, Markup, etc.

Received on Sunday, 21 April 2002 13:46:11 UTC