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Re: JAWS and disabled combobox options

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From: Detlev Fischer
Date: Jan 19, 2017 3:31AM

Hi Jonathan,

So you think the general advice for accessible content would be to avoid optgroup altogether (rather than pushing UA or AT makers to better support it)?
I just had a quick look at the problem myself with Firefox and NVDA, going to an the search page of an app that I developed where we use select with optgroup:
https://anpassungsfinder.de/anpass/anpass_search/
It's the second select labeled "Hilfsmittel"

When I open the select with ALT + ARROW DOWN (or space bar), I am able to type keys to jump straight to options despite the presence of optgroup. So it looks there are implementations where selecting options by letter DO work. (Haven't cecked otzhe browasers and screenreaders yet. BTW in the app, ther ARE issues with selecting options, but I believe they are down to the automatic updating of search results and in turn reduced options dispayed in the select - we need to look at that).

Best, Detlev

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Detlev Fischer
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Jonathan Avila schrieb am 18.01.2017 17:40:

>> Looks like the developer should have used optgroup instead of disabled
>> options. The States are groups, but not values themselves.
>
> Except use of optgroup doesn't allow for keyboard navigation using first letter
> of the item in the optgroup. And optgroup isn't well supported by assistive
> technology in my experience.
>
> Jonathan
>
>