DHTML Keyboard Meeting: discussion about grid navigation

Hi all,

This is what I understood from Tuesdays discussion what makes sense for "SAP and Oracle type grids" having one potentially editable item per cell:

Begin Edit Mode:

- Enter or F2 on editable cell
- Alphanumeric key on editable cell

End Edit Mode:

- Enter to confirm last changes
- ESC to undo last changes

TAB in Display-Only Mode:

- Leaves Grid

TAB in Edit Mode:

- Confirms last changes, moves to the next editable cell and activates its edit mode
- If next cell is not editable, simply focuses next cell and restores Display-Only mode


If we allow for grids with MORE than one item per grid cell (Jon Gunderson idea of grids) we need to change the TAB meaning entirely. Here, TAB here is not any more used to leave and re-enter the grid.

Therefore, we need an additional skipping key to leave anytime the grid and focus the next element after the grid and an inverse key combination to restore the focus on the last position in the grid. We have already proposed (and implemented, it works!): 

->  CTRL+TAB / SHIFT+CTRL+TAB (or F6 / SHIFT+F6) for that

The idea is as follows:

0) Navigation between grid cells with multiple items is done with arrow keys as usual
1) TAB shall be used to *enter* a grid cell having multiple items
2) TAB shall be used for navigation within the different cell items of a grid cell
3) TAB will *exit* this cell also again and focus the next cell 
4) Navigation with arrow keys will be re-activated (if next cell contains also multiple items, it is necessary to press TAB again to enter)

Note that this approach requires that there  *should* be a (custom) property of a grid cell that it contains multiple items and the JS/User Agent keyboard handler will adjust TAB key behavior accordingly (on single content, TAB will simply go to next cell like arrow right)

Of course, the skipping approach with CTRL+TAB instead of TAB can be also been applied to ordinary "SAP grids" as we actually already do.

Best Regards
Stefan


Dr. Stefan Schnabel 
Accessibility Expert 
User Experience - Accessibility 

SAP AG
Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16, 
69190 Walldorf, Germany

T: +49 (6227) 7-65652
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mailto:stefan.schnabel@sap.com 

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