Re: highlighting the focus

Hi Loretta,

I think in some cases there is nothing focussed initially. Moving a focus is
the first thing that causes something to get a focus...

And yes, it seems that the requirements you have pointed to require that the
user can highlight whatever has a focus. (But may choose not to...)

cheers

Charles McCN

On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Loretta Guarino Reid wrote:

  Do the User Agent Guidelines indicate whether the element with the current focus must always be highlighted?

  My impression is that focus elements are highlighted when I move focus to them via keyboard commands, but if, for instance, I just open an application, the focus element may not be highlighted.

  As an example, if I open a web page in Internet Explorer, there is no indication of the focus element. However, if I start tabbing, each new focus element is highlighted.

  		Loretta Guarino Reid


  The relevent guidelines and definitions seem to be

  8.6 Implement selection, content focus, and user interface focus mechanisms. Implement them according to system conventions (per checkpoint 5.8). [Priority 1]
  8.7 Provide a mechanism for highlighting the current viewport, selection, and content focus. [Priority 1]

  Focus, content focus, user interface focus, current focus
  The notion of focus refers to two identifying mechanisms of user agents:
  	1.The "content focus" designates an active element in a document. A viewport has at most one content focus.
  	2.The "user interface focus" designates a control of the user interface that will respond to user input (e.g., a radio button, text box, menu, etc.).
  In this document, the term "focus" by itself encompasses both types of focus. Where one is meant specifically in this document, it is identified.

  When several viewports coexist, each may have a content and user interface focus. At all times, only one content focus or one user interface focus is active, called the current focus. The current focus responds to user input and may be toggled between content focus and user interface focus through the keyboard, pointing device, etc. Both the content and user interface focus may be highlighted. Refer also to the definition of point of regard.



-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
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September - November 2000:
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Received on Wednesday, 6 December 2000 23:24:07 UTC