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Re: Tree role in a forum?

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From: glen walker
Date: May 6, 2018 8:55AM

I agree that the tree role should be used but the last time I used it, it
wasn't very well supported. It's probably been a 1/2 year or more, though,
since I used it so hopefully things have improved since then.

I would **not** rely on unread links to indicate unread messages, but I
like that you want to use a built-in AT shortcut key to navigate to unread
messages. Most forums and email apps use aria-labelledby that contains an
ID that points to an "unread" label (in addition to other IDs to create a
concatenated message), although creating concatenated messages is not
typically a good solution if you have internationalization concerns because
of grammar and syntax rules for some languages.

You could have a visually hidden heading, such as <h6> to make it very
minor, for the "unread" state so that AT users could use the '6' key to
quickly navigate to the unread messages.

Glen


On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 8:56 AM, Jonathan Cohn < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> The tree role sounds like it would be useful. But you will need to
> implement your own keystrokes in the tree.
>
> https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#tree
> To be keyboard accessible <https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-
> aria-1.1/#dfn-keyboard-accessible>, authors SHOULD manage focus of
> descendants for all instances of this role <https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-
> aria-1.1/#dfn-role>, as described in Managing Focus <
> https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#managingfocus>.
>
> Also, if you look at ARIA 1.1 for the Composite role which is the parent
> role of Select which is a parent role of tree then it very specifically
> says you m should expect NVDA to be in Focus mode and JAWS to be in forms
> mode when Tree or any of its children have focus.
> Best wishes,
>
> Jonathan Cohn
>
>
>
> > On May 5, 2018, at 5:11 AM, Alexander Karelas < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
> >
> > I develop this forum: https://forums.baza.gr/readmsg/92 in which (as you
> > might see) the titles of the messages in the thread form a visual tree,
> > similar to how threaded emails appear in Thunderbird, or subject lines
> > appear in USENET clients.
> >
> > Now I wonder if that visual tree should have a role="tree".
> >
> > I thought it would be a good idea, in order to allow screen-reader users
> > to navigate around the tree with standard keystrokes which would avoid
> > the confusion.
> >
> > But on the other hand, I see that the 'u' key in NVDA does nothing when
> > focus is inside the tree. I liked the fact that 'u' would go to the next
> > unread link (ie an unread message in the tree), since it would allow the
> > screen-reader user to not traverse the entire tree to find a message
> > that they haven't read already.
> >
> > So, does using role="tree" seem like a good idea to you in this case?
> >
> > Maybe I should code my own keyboard shortcut that will take the user to
> > the next unread message in the tree... something which would require
> > keeping track in the database of which messages they've read already,
> > since the browser won't report this information to JavaScript for
> > privacy reasons.
> >
> > What do you think? Any other advice?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > >