Matthew Eernisse wrote:
Mimi Yin wrote:
This primarily because traditionally in web UIs, there is NO notion
of focus (except for for text fields). So in order to use the
keyboard, browsers needed to come up with visual feedback to tell
the user where the keyboard focus was at all times. In other words,
the dotted outline was created to compensate for a lack in web UIs.
Actually, there's a pretty well-established idea of focus for all
types of form elements in Web UIs that goes back pretty far. (Just as
an example, the JavaScript 'onFocus' method was originally implented
back in JavaScript 1.0 -- circa Netscape 2.0, in 1995.)
A hearty +1
Mimi you're referring to "traditional web UIs" where the page keeps
reloading and focus is transient... but what about modern web UIs where
the page stays loaded? Matthew is absolutely right that there is a
convention, and Davor is absolutely right that Scooby may have no
control over it.
In wxWidgets, the way the calendar and grid are written, we do have
control over those particular widgets because we control everything down
to the pixel level...but other widgets may resort to the system-level
focus (i.e. the blue halo, a dashed line, etc) but in Scooby focus
ultimately comes down to Accessible elements in the page and may be a
dotted outline... or a particular sound that is played for blind users.
It would probably be worth looking at other Ajaxy apps to see what
they're like. Yahoo Mail Beta seems to have hidden the dashed-line
somehow and Kiko uses the dashed line as you move around the calendar.
Google Calendar seems to have a pretty weak accessibility story as it
stands now, but I'm sure that will change.
Alec
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