Re: activating behaviours

Of course, I understand your concerns, but...

What should I do NOW? Because NOT ALL browsers trigger the "onclick" 
event when the space bar is pressed. Not all browsers act the same nor 
trigger onclick events unless you include an event handler for it (even 
if their default behaviour with radio-buttons is that).

And, indeed, I'm not sure that browsers should really trigger an onclick 
event when the space bar is pressed, because the space bar IS NOT a 
mouse click. IMHO, default behaviours like triggering "clicks" through 
"taps" or "space/enter keys" is just a trick to make things work in 
situations where the author didn't take the time to include specific 
events, but I am not sure that it is "the right way" to proceed.

Moreover, should I also forget about arrow keys, since they can be used 
to scroll up and down? Should I forget sliders with left/right arrow, 
since they could be needed for horizontal scrolling? Should I forget to 
provide left/right interaction through the tabs in a tab panel? no 
up/down in a tree view? Not left/right to open/close a tree node? Should 
I forget custom widgets?

Sorry, but I think you are not being realistic about current browser 
implementations. It sounds to me like saying "we must not provide a 
'skip to content' link because browsers *should* do it", or "we must 
never include buttons to increase/decrease text size nor changing 
contrast, because browsers should be able to do it".

Cheers,
Ramón.

Chaals wrote:

> The problem is mediocre browser implementation. Trying to solve it in 
> individual pages is risky. In particular, adding traps for particular 
> keys to simulate a click is harmful, since
>  1. It is unnecessary
>  2. It can interfere with the user's normal interaction
> But adding tabindex is necessary and doesn't interfere and is therefore 
> a good idea.

Received on Wednesday, 11 July 2012 10:28:38 UTC