Re: [WSG] a required field marker in forms
Peter Ottery wrote: 1) I'm curious if the use of an asterix to indicate a required field, and the way I've done it, is ok accessibility-wise or if theres anything else i could/should do...? G'day Pete I've recently undertaken the same work myself. I'm beginning to undertake a very OO approach to HTML and CSS. I'm creating quite a collection of code snippets. As such, I've recently addressed similar issues My understanding is that some screenreaders simply identify an isolated asterix as a grammatical entity. This will still work to a certain degree, but if there are any 'grammatical entities' in use on the page, or probably the site, it could cause confusion. It certainly doesn't indicate the kind of effect I had always assumed it did I've changed to actually using the word required. Near as I can tell, this is the only guaranteed way of achieving the appropriate effect Perhaps Patrick, Russ or one of the other accessibility gurus can confirm or deny? Cheers Lachlan ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
[WSG] a required field marker in forms
I've set up a base standard form layout to use as a starting point for projects requiring a form - with text input boxes, check box's, radio buttons, a select menu, and a text area that could all be swapped in or out or duplicated relatively easily. here's the page: http://skunkworks.farcrycms.com/wsg/forms.html 2 questions, 1) I'm curious if the use of an asterix to indicate a required field, and the way I've done it, is ok accessibility-wise or if theres anything else i could/should do...? 2) theres also an error message placement that would flick on if you've missed a required field: http://skunkworks.farcrycms.com/wsg/forms_error.html the error message seems to be displaying fine across a wide range of browsers (courtesy of browsercam: http://www.browsercam.com/public.aspx?proj_id=157477) except good ol mac ie5. if anyone can see an easy fix for mac ie5 that'd be most welcome. cheers, pete ~~ Peter Ottery ~ Senior Designer Daemon Pty Ltd 17 Roslyn Gardens Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011 www.daemon.com.au ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] a required field marker in forms
Hi Peter, I am not shure about asteri, but I think it is not very usable that if I click on the text near checkbox, checkbox doesn't change its state. On 4/22/05, Peter Ottery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've set up a base standard form layout to use as a starting point for projects requiring a form - with text input boxes, check box's, radio buttons, a select menu, and a text area that could all be swapped in or out or duplicated relatively easily. here's the page: http://skunkworks.farcrycms.com/wsg/forms.html 2 questions, 1) I'm curious if the use of an asterix to indicate a required field, and the way I've done it, is ok accessibility-wise or if theres anything else i could/should do...? 2) theres also an error message placement that would flick on if you've missed a required field: http://skunkworks.farcrycms.com/wsg/forms_error.html the error message seems to be displaying fine across a wide range of browsers (courtesy of browsercam: http://www.browsercam.com/public.aspx?proj_id=157477) except good ol mac ie5. if anyone can see an easy fix for mac ie5 that'd be most welcome. cheers, pete ~~ Peter Ottery ~ Senior Designer Daemon Pty Ltd 17 Roslyn Gardens Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011 www.daemon.com.au ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- Best regards, Dmitry Baranovskiy ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] a required field marker in forms
Dmitry wrote: Hi Peter, I am not shure about asteri, but I think it is not very usable that if I click on the text near checkbox, checkbox doesn't change its state. for sure. that behaviour (thanks to using labels) works for me in PC IE5+ and Firefox (which is a pretty large slice of users) in this example. what browser are you looking at it in? ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] a required field marker in forms
Here's a little piece of DOM scripting that will redress the lack of
label behaviour in Safari. It's basically just doing what's built in to
many browsers: clicking on a label brings the associated from element
into focus:
function makeLabelsWork() {
if (!document.getElementsByTagName) return false;
var allforms = document.getElementsByTagName('form');
for (var formcount=0;formcountallforms.length;formcount++) {
var labels =
document.forms[formcount].getElementsByTagName('label');
for (var i=0;ilabels.length;i++) {
if (!labels[i].getAttribute('for')) break;
labels[i].formfield = labels[i].getAttribute('for');
labels[i].formnumber = formcount;
labels[i].onclick = function() {
eval('document.forms['+this.formnumber+'].'+this.formfield+'.focus()');
}
}
}
}
You'll need to call the function when the document loads:
window.onload = function() {
makeLabelsWork();
}
It isn't targetted at any specific browser(s). If the browser already
does this, then the script is just duplicating what's already there. If
the browser doesn't have this behaviour by default, it has now.
HTH,
Jeremy
--
Jeremy Keith
a d a c t i o
http://adactio.com/
**
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
**
