Re: ARIA roles for Identifying title panes

At 11:16 AM -0500 5 03 2007, Becky Gibson wrote:
>A title pane is a container with a title bar, clicking the title bar
>expands and collapses (hides/shows) the container and its contents.  My
>thought it so put the title bar into the tab order via tabindex=0 and use
>the enter key in addition to mouse click  to toggle hide/show of the
>associated container.
>
>I am uncertain as to what ARIA roles to use.   I was not going to put the
>container itself into the tab order but the container seems to be the
>element which should get the region role and a state of expanded = true or
>false.   I don't know what role the title bar itself should get but it
>does control the container.
>Thoughts?

This is just like the table row in [my not-yet-explained sketch for] 
the tree-grid.

That is to say the container has the expanded and collapsed state, but
the user intput is targeted not to the container but to the sub-object that
is its controller.  This is a case where the manipulation is nearly direct, but
not direct.  You are not dragging the pane open, you are operating its
open/close widget, just like the clasp on your lunchbox.

So I would be inclined to give the container a TABINDEX="-1"  and a 
controlledby
hooked to the title bar.  TitleBar has a @role="checkbox" unless we have a
more generic 'boolean' widget role to give it.  It is a latching, 
toggling, machine
that takes trigger input and maintains a boolean state.

$.02

Extension to tree-grid later...

Al

>
>There is a test page for a mouse only version  (NO keyboard support has
>been implemented yet) of this widget available in the Dojo nightly source:
>  TitlePane
>
>Becky Gibson
>Web Accessibility Architect
>                                                       
>IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
>5 Technology Park Drive
>Westford, MA 01886
>Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
>Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com

Received on Monday, 5 March 2007 16:34:53 UTC