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Re: Guidelines for nested data tables?

for

From: D A
Date: Oct 22, 2009 10:20AM

> I would have thought that you should construct the whole table with all the
> rows that are to be hidden, then use DOM scripting to hide them. That way
> the content is all available to people who do not have JavaScript.

In this case, we're loading the 'parent table'.

Each row (record) of the parent table will then be expandable, where
more data relating to that record will be loaded via an ajax call.

> Can you not come up with an alternate construction, such as linking to
> additional data tables rather than using hide/reveal? Maybe you can't, but I
> would definitely look for alternatives if possible.

I'm definitely interested in the alternatives. In this particular
case, however, I'm not building the system. So I have to work within
the already established wireframes. I'm striving to make them as
accessible as I can up front, though realize there will be compromises
at this point.

> In general, hide/reveal functionality can cause significant difficulty for
> screen reader users if you are not careful to control the location of the
> focus after each operation.

Ah! Good tip in moving the focus. That should be something I should be
able to do fairly easily within the framework we're building upon.

By initial thought was a structure like this:

table
tr
td (data)
td (data)
td (data)
tr
td colspan=3 (to hold sub-table)
sub-table would go here

-Darrel