Re: How aria-multiselectable applies to TreeViews

James - 

I think you misread my email.  I was asking for guidance rather than arguing a position.  I am confused how "aria-multiselectable" is designed to work with the "tree" role - not the "menu" role.  Specifically, how do we indicate the selected state of a parent node in a tree control if only some of the node's children are selected?  For example, consider the following markup:

<ul role="tree" aria-multiselectable="true">
  <li role="presentation">
    <a role="treeitem" aria-expanded="true" href="#group-1">Fruits</a> <!-- parent node -->
    <ul id="group-1" role="group">
      <li role="treeitem" aria-selected="true">Apple</li>
      <li role="treeitem" aria-selected="false">Orange</li>
      <li role="treeitem" aria-selected="true">Pear</li>      
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

In this instance would the parent "Fruits" treeitem have an "aria-selected" state value of "true" or "false"?  Or does this use case illustrate the need for a value of "mixed"?

- Todd

On Dec 2, 2010, at 3:16 PM, James Craig wrote:

> I'm not opposed to opening an ARIA 2.0 issue for adding a "mixed" state for aria-selected, but you'll be able to sell the idea better if you come up with a real-world scenario where this might be useful. Many cases would/could be covered by nested menus with groups of menuitemradio elements. 
> 
> On Nov 26, 2010, at 4:18 PM, Todd Kloots wrote:
> 
>> I am curious how it is imagined that the "aria-multiselectable" and "aria-selected" properties apply to a TreeView control?  The ARIA spec indicates that the "aria-multiselectable" property can be used with the the "tree" role, and the "aria-selected" state with "treeitem".  However, the "aria-selected" state only accepts a boolean.  How should developers indicate parent nodes in a partially selected stated - some tree items selected, some not.  And how is a screen reader supposed to announce the partially selected state of a parent node?
>> 
>> I've yet to find any ARIA TreeView examples that make use of "aria-multiselectable", but considering the spec indicates that it applies to trees and the ARIA Authoring Practices specifies keyboard shortcuts for supporting multiple selection on trees, I figured some thought must have been given to this use case.
>> 
>> Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Todd
>

Received on Friday, 3 December 2010 00:03:42 UTC