#35870: Allow customization of the empty option in select inputs
-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
Reporter: Marijke Luttekes | Type:
| Cleanup/optimization
Status: new | Component: Forms
Version: 5.0 | Severity: Normal
Keywords: accessibility | Triage Stage:
| Unreviewed
Has patch: 0 | Needs documentation: 0
Needs tests: 0 | Patch needs improvement: 0
Easy pickings: 0 | UI/UX: 0
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== Description
Select inputs (`<select>`) may have an empty first choice meant to leave a
blank value or inform the user that they need to pick an option.
The default current value for this option is `"---------"` and cannot be
customized for the entire project at once. A developer must override each
form field individually if they wish to change this value on their
website, which is tedious and prone to errors.
The empty choice value is defined as `BLANK_CHOICE_DASH` in
[https://github.com/django/django/blob/main/django/db/models/fields/__init__.py
django.db.models.fields].
== Accessibility
The current blank option is also inaccessible; I quote this description
from a private ticket that was assigned to me, and therefore cannot be
linked directly:
> **Problem**
>
> Whenever a <select> dropdown has no option selected by default, a line
of dashes is used inside of an <option>. The majority of screen
reader/speech synthesiser combinations don't speak this, and so it can be
confusing to hear essentially nothing. This is particularly true when
navigating to the first choice from an option with text.
>
> **Solution**
>
> Use a more perceivable placeholder string for the first option, e.g.
"(select an option)", using parentheses to disrupt first-letter keyboard
navigation as little as possible.
== Proposed change
I foresee two options:
1. Replace `BLANK_CHOICE_DASH` with a new, optional setting, which allows
users to set the blank option for their project. For backwards
compatibility, the default value of the new setting equals `"---------"`.
2. Replace `BLANK_CHOICE_DASH` with a new, more descriptive value in core.
Option 1 will be less disruptive, as this will not break existing
behaviors. Option 2 will fix this problem for all users, but it would
require translations for every language we offer.
--
Ticket URL: <https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/35870>
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