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Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Thu, Feb 21 2013 5:47AM
Subject: Properly repeat table headers
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All,

I am working with somebody who has a long table 60+ rows. Right now they
are more or less throwing table headers in as you scroll down.

I cannot throw aria-hidden on them because everybody (intranet page) is
using IE8.
The owner won't split the table up into smaller ones (there is some natural
groupings).
I suggested maybe wrapping the rows in a tbody, give it a decent height,
then have it scroll. The owner wants the table to fill the page.

Putting <th>'s in the table, mid-table, which doesn't give new information
just feels weird. The only other thing I can think of is make them normal
cells, and style them like the headers.

Thoughts?

--
Ryan E. Benson

From: Joe Chidzik
Date: Thu, Feb 21 2013 7:06AM
Subject: Re: Properly repeat table headers
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> All,
>
> I am working with somebody who has a long table 60+ rows. Right now they are
> more or less throwing table headers in as you scroll down.
>
> I cannot throw aria-hidden on them because everybody (intranet page) is using IE8.
> The owner won't split the table up into smaller ones (there is some natural
> groupings).
> I suggested maybe wrapping the rows in a tbody, give it a decent height, then
> have it scroll. The owner wants the table to fill the page.
>
> Putting <th>'s in the table, mid-table, which doesn't give new information just feels
> weird. The only other thing I can think of is make them normal cells, and style them
> like the headers.

[Joe Chidzik] I saw a solution to a similar issue recently. There was a lengthy table, contained in an iframe, with (50+ rows), and with only 10 visible at a time. There was a separate table, containing just headers, above the iframe. The iframe table had a headers row, which was hidden offscreen with CSS. Sighted users, could scroll in the iframe, to scroll through the table content whilst the table containing just headers above this remained static and visible. Screenreader users could similarly access the table in the iframe, and had the hidden headers read out for them. Perhaps in this case the table containing only headers could be marked up with role="presentation" so that screenreaders ignored it.

Clearly this is not ideal; there's a table with no data and only headers, after all. But whilst semantically unpleasing, it did work.

Joe

From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Thu, Feb 21 2013 7:43AM
Subject: Re: Properly repeat table headers
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On Thu, 21 Feb 2013, Joe Chidzik wrote:
> [Joe Chidzik] Sighted users, could scroll in the iframe, to scroll through the table content whilst the table containing just headers above this remained static and visible.

Was it easily navigable for keyboard users (ie page up/page down worked)? Sometimes iframes are coded problematically for keyboard/voice.

-Deborah

From: Joe Chidzik
Date: Thu, Feb 21 2013 7:56AM
Subject: Re: Properly repeat table headers
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> On Thu, 21 Feb 2013, Joe Chidzik wrote:
> > [Joe Chidzik] Sighted users, could scroll in the iframe, to scroll through the table
> content whilst the table containing just headers above this remained static and
> visible.
>
> Was it easily navigable for keyboard users (ie page up/page down worked)?
> Sometimes iframes are coded problematically for keyboard/voice.
>

[Joe Chidzik] That's a good point; the only way it was usable from the keyboard (that I remember checking) was that there were links in each of the table rows. So when I tabbed into the table and a link received the focus, I could then arrow up and down to scroll the table updown. I don't think I tried page updown keys, but guess they would have worked. I'm not sure how I would have scrolled the table from the keyboard if there was no link within it to receive the focus - I suspect I would not have been able to though.

Also not sure how it would have worked for voice users - I guess clicking into the iframe to set the focus there may have allowed scroll updown commands to then work, but I didn't check this at the time. I'll try and get access to the site again so I can try this though.

Joe

From: David Ashleydale
Date: Thu, Feb 21 2013 9:06AM
Subject: Re: Properly repeat table headers
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"The owner wants the table to fill the page."

I wonder if you could continue this conversation with him. Why does he feel
this way?

David