Re: My case for the obsoletion of longdesc (Was: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update)

On Sep 16, 2012, at 3:39 AM, Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak, Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:46:47 -0700:
>> On Sep 15, 2012, at 7:55 PM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> 
>>> However, due to bug 22261 - "Clicking on a non-text 
>>> input element does not give it focus",[1] Webkit and Chromium suffers 
>>> from the following: if one opens a longdesc link (e.g. with Webkit 
>>> based iCab) VoiceOver will start to read from the top of the page 
>>> instead of from the section where the particular longdesc was situated. 
>>> Something which takes away lots of flexibility with regard to longdesc. 
>>> And, in fact, it also impacts regular links as well - it is is real 
>>> hole in VoiceOver and Webkit's elegance.
>> 
>> I would say this is the responsibility of the implementors of iCab, 
>> not WebKit or VoiceOver. There is no native support of any kind for 
>> longdesc in WebKit or in VoiceOver. iCab authors have not reported 
>> any bugs indicating that they are blocked. And it is my belief that 
>> iCab can handle this detail by itself.
> 
> I have forwarded your view to iCab. It is true that iCab works around a 
> few bugs as well as issues that the developer disagrees with. So may be 
> this would be one such issue.
> 
> However - and may be this was not sufficient clear in what I said 
> above: I would say that that bug also affect skip-to links - and all 
> links where it is important that focus is moved to the target. This 
> bug, therefore, is a mayor drawback for Webkit keyboard users.

I did comment in the bug - I tentatively think links should get focus on click if the user has enabled tabbing to links (or is on a platform where you always tab to links). But I think that issue is off-topic-for longdesc. Happy to discuss elsewhere if you wish.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Sunday, 16 September 2012 15:58:21 UTC