Re: HTML Usage Question

At 05:05 PM 2000-07-21 -0400, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>bworthin@us.ibm.com wrote:
>> 
>> Hopefully, this is a proper way to ask a question about using HTML.  One
>> thing that has bothered me about HTML and most of the applications that I
>> find within IBM is that the cursor is never positioned in the correct place
>> as I encounter a panel.  One of my colleagues said he has been through the
>> spec for HTML4 and cannot find a way to control the cursor when the panel
>> has multiple input fields.  With a single input field, the cursor seems to
>> be placed in that field.
>> 
>> Any advice on how to accomplish this will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.
>
>Hello Bill,
>
>The question of cursor positioning is out of scope
>for the HTML specification and not an appropriate
>question for this mailing list, which is for the
>User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group.
>I recommend that you consult the resources lists on
>the HTML home page [1].

Well, if what is actually wanted is that on opening a page with a form the
focus should move to the first form control, that could be in scope, here.
You want the user to be positioned to start entering form data, is that it?
  Let's try some HTML coding first, though.

Try playing with TABINDEX but first tab through the page and find all the
places it stops and be sure to assign them _all_ TABINDEX sequence numbers
or else you will likely get something you didn't want.

This can be roughly equivalent to "move the cursor" if there is a rule in
effect "move system caret with focus/selection changes" the way screen
reader users often run.  See Internet Options menu in IE for example.

If I recall correctly there is a whitepaper on using TABINDEX in the queue
but it may not be finished yet in the Web Content Guidelines group
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/>.

Al

>
> - Ian
>
>[1] http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/
>
>-- 
>Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
>

Received on Friday, 21 July 2000 18:55:28 UTC