WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: aria combobox

for

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Dec 5, 2011 8:18AM

Yes, the interesting thing about ARIA is that it modifies behaviors, not
functionality; so that you can script the widget to do whatever you want and
use ARIA to enhance this functionality.
This is how the Country Selector widget works, which doesn't function as a
selector either, just an edit field; the list is a separate entity that
functions as a listbox.


----- Original Message -----
From: "adam solomon" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 6:39 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] aria combobox


> Thanks guys for the responses. The examples were helpful. I am still
> concerned by the following excerpt from the aria spec:
>
>> A presentation of a select <http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#select>;;
>> usually similar to a textbox
>> <http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#textbox>;where users can type ahead
>> to select an option, or type to enter arbitrary
>> text as a new item in the list. See related
>> listbox<http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#listbox>;
>> .
>>
>
> This seems to indicate that combobox role is reserved for a widget which
> allows selection. My widget does not, and it also does not allow arbitrary
> text (except for the purpose of filtering the list). Do you still maintain
> that combobox would be relevant even in a non selection widget?
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Gunderson, Jon R
> < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:
>
>> It looks like the latest jquery-ui widget for combo box supports ARIA:
>>
>> http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/combobox.html
>>
>> Jon
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto:
>> <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bryan Garaventa
>> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 7:52 AM
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] aria combobox
>>
>> Yes, ARIA is an excellent means for accomplishing this.
>>
>> You can see an example of this at
>> http://whatsock.com/modules/auto_suggestion_search_field_module/demo.htm
>> where the same functionality is made fully accessible.
>>
>> You can see which ARIA attributes are being used within the DOM using
>> Firebug (or similar for IE).
>>
>> There are some important details that you should know about implementing
>> ARIA in advance though, which are described in the article at
>> https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2011/12/04/lesser-known-details-that-seriously-impact-the-usage-of-dynamically-generated-aria-behaviors/
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Bryan
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "adam solomon" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 5:03 AM
>> Subject: [WebAIM] aria combobox
>>
>>
>> > we have a textbox followed by a list of links. The list of links is
>> > presented as an autocomplete popup list connected to the textbox. When
>> > a
>> > user types text into the textbox, the list is opened and filtered. Or,
>> one
>> > can press the dropdown arrow to open the whole list. The list of links
>> > itself immediately follows the textbox in the html. There is no
>> > selection
>> > here, rathr, the user is presented with the links and must navigate to
>> > them
>> > and click. How would I connect the textbox with the list in an elegant
>> > fashion - is aria combobox relevant? The spec description mentions
>> > combobox
>> > as being selectable, and our widget is not. Any ideas, aria or other?
>> >
>> > --
>> > adam solomon
>> > linkedin <http://il.linkedin.com/pub/adam-solomon/24/449/a4>;
>> > blogix <http://adam.blogix.co.il/>;
>> >