WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Thread: Form elements without Form Tags using title attributes?

for

Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)

From: Susan Grossman
Date: Thu, Sep 09 2010 11:38AM
Subject: Form elements without Form Tags using title attributes?
No previous message | Next message →

Please pardon if this is a duplicate, but it hasn't shown up for me in over
4 hours, so decided to try again.

I have a validation point that I need to pass, I know that because a
validator says so it doesn't mean it's the best thing to do, but in this
case, I have a corporate requirement for something that's going to work with
US Federal agency and have been told it needs to pass this validator.

Development is using drop down menus and check boxes to change display
choices. These are scripted correctly and accessible by tabbing. Since they
put in ID's and labels with For attributes, they needed to add in a form
tag. Once they added a Form tag, it requiring some type of form submit, and
there's no submission on this page.

Can the form tag be omitted and Labels with For attributes removed and
changed to title attributes in the select and check box inputs? It's seems
to sound alright in Readers (NVDA & JAWS in regular mode), but I'm not a
power user and don't want to miss "consequences". It is usable with just a
keyboard and passes HTML validation. But is it really accessible and a valid
solution?

Thanks for any pointers
--
*Susan R. Grossman*
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: E.J. Zufelt
Date: Thu, Sep 09 2010 3:22PM
Subject: Re: Form elements without Form Tags using title attributes?
← Previous message | Next message →

Good afternoon Susan,

You page should valdate without the form element. The form element is really only used to tell the user agent (browser) how to send information within the fields to a server. Since you aren't enabling this functionality you don't need the element.

I hope this helps,
Everett Zufelt
http://zufelt.ca

Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/ezufelt

View my LinkedIn Profile
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt



On 2010-09-09, at 2:38 PM, Susan Grossman wrote:

> Please pardon if this is a duplicate, but it hasn't shown up for me in over
> 4 hours, so decided to try again.
>
> I have a validation point that I need to pass, I know that because a
> validator says so it doesn't mean it's the best thing to do, but in this
> case, I have a corporate requirement for something that's going to work with
> US Federal agency and have been told it needs to pass this validator.
>
> Development is using drop down menus and check boxes to change display
> choices. These are scripted correctly and accessible by tabbing. Since they
> put in ID's and labels with For attributes, they needed to add in a form
> tag. Once they added a Form tag, it requiring some type of form submit, and
> there's no submission on this page.
>
> Can the form tag be omitted and Labels with For attributes removed and
> changed to title attributes in the select and check box inputs? It's seems
> to sound alright in Readers (NVDA & JAWS in regular mode), but I'm not a
> power user and don't want to miss "consequences". It is usable with just a
> keyboard and passes HTML validation. But is it really accessible and a valid
> solution?
>
> Thanks for any pointers
> --
> *Susan R. Grossman*
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>

From: adam solomon
Date: Sat, Sep 11 2010 12:15PM
Subject: Re: Form elements without Form Tags using title attributes?
← Previous message | No next message

This is a quote from the HTML 4 Forms
specification:<http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html>;

The elements used to create controls generally appear inside a
FORM<http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-FORM>;element,
but may also appear outside of a
> FORM <http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-FORM>; element
> declaration when they are used to build user interfaces. This is discussed
> in the section on intrinsic events.<http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/scripts.html#events>;Note that controls outside a form cannot be successful
> controls<http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#successful-controls>;
> .
>

You clearly do not need a form element to validate. However, as you yourself
pointed out, you need the title attribute for accessiblity specs.

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:22 PM, E.J. Zufelt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Good afternoon Susan,
>
> You page should valdate without the form element. The form element is
> really only used to tell the user agent (browser) how to send information
> within the fields to a server. Since you aren't enabling this functionality
> you don't need the element.
>
> I hope this helps,
> Everett Zufelt
> http://zufelt.ca
>
> Follow me on Twitter
> http://twitter.com/ezufelt
>
> View my LinkedIn Profile
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt
>
>
>
> On 2010-09-09, at 2:38 PM, Susan Grossman wrote:
>
> > Please pardon if this is a duplicate, but it hasn't shown up for me in
> over
> > 4 hours, so decided to try again.
> >
> > I have a validation point that I need to pass, I know that because a
> > validator says so it doesn't mean it's the best thing to do, but in this
> > case, I have a corporate requirement for something that's going to work
> with
> > US Federal agency and have been told it needs to pass this validator.
> >
> > Development is using drop down menus and check boxes to change display
> > choices. These are scripted correctly and accessible by tabbing. Since
> they
> > put in ID's and labels with For attributes, they needed to add in a form
> > tag. Once they added a Form tag, it requiring some type of form submit,
> and
> > there's no submission on this page.
> >
> > Can the form tag be omitted and Labels with For attributes removed and
> > changed to title attributes in the select and check box inputs? It's
> seems
> > to sound alright in Readers (NVDA & JAWS in regular mode), but I'm not a
> > power user and don't want to miss "consequences". It is usable with just
> a
> > keyboard and passes HTML validation. But is it really accessible and a
> valid
> > solution?
> >
> > Thanks for any pointers
> > --
> > *Susan R. Grossman*
> > = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> >