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Thread: Lack of NVDA support on grids

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From: megha patangi
Date: Tue, Dec 27 2022 11:30PM
Subject: Lack of NVDA support on grids
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Hello Web Aim team,

Recently while working on grids (editable tables), observed that there
is a lack of support by NVDA.
In grids preferable design pattern is -
1. When cell contains only textual information then whole cell receives focus
2. when cell has only one interactive asset, like a link, then the
asset inside the cell should receive focus.

Now, following this pattern, found that when we move from focused cell
to the adjacent cell having link getting focus, using arrow key
navigation inside the grid, NVDA is coming out from focus mode to
browse mode and then ofcourse further arrow key navigation will not
let focus go into focus mode. This is not observed with JAWS.

I checked the APG WAI example for 'Data grids' and found the same
behavior there as well. Example link -
https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/example-index/grid/dataGrids

Any help to suggest how to handle this better or is there any issue
flagged to NV Access for this?


Secondly, using Voice over on MAC - safari, do we have this concept of
focus mode versus browse mode?
Means can we navigate in grids using just arrow keys on safari browser
using voice over too?

Regards,
Megha

From: glen walker
Date: Wed, Dec 28 2022 12:40PM
Subject: Re: Lack of NVDA support on grids
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If you inspect the javascript for the example and then inspect the html as
you run the example, you'll see that the focus is set on table cell
elements (td) for the plain text columns but is set on the actual link
(rather than the table cell) for the third column. By forcing the focus to
the link, NVDA might be thinking the focus left the grid and needs to
switch modes. I see that JAWS does not do that.

There are some roles that cause a screen reader to switch modes when that
element receives focus, and when focus moves off that element, the mode
usually switches back. You can see the list of roles here, with grid being
one of them:

https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/practices/keyboard-interface/#x6-1-fundamental-keyboard-navigation-conventions

It was easy enough for me to press Insert+Space to toggle the mode in NVDA
so that I could still arrow left or right off the link, but that could be
confusing. I'm not sure you should try to code/hack around it. It'd be
better to address the issue with NVDA directly,
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues