Veine K Vikberg wrote:
and if the goal was only XHTML compliance I would agree with you to 100% on the issue of not using onkeypress for the reason above.
I actually never mentioned anything about XHTML validation in my original reply, but yes.
However, the WAI is not as forgiving and this is a device-dependent attribute, where redundant input methods are required for the same element. There are five instances where WAI gives us no choice but to use redundancy:
I find it interesting how you refer to WAI as unforgiving and leaving you no choice. Of course, accessibility is not the rote mastery of a set of guidelines, but also involves a level of judgement.
Thanks for the long and exhaustive rundown of what WAI is, what event handlers are etc...but I think you'll find that I am quite well versed in the subject matter. One thing to note: even people at the W3C agree that onclick is effectively a misnomer of what should really have been called onactivation. There *is* no device independent equivalent: onkeypress is just as device dependent, if not more, as "onclick" - however, onclick is de-facto triggered by a variety of devices, not just mouse buttons. Do a search around the subject of whether or not onclick is to be considered device dependent or device independent, and you'll find that modern thinking on the issue is that onclick *is* device independent. Even on the actual WAI IG list, the subject seems almost unworthy of a prolonged discussion http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2004JanMar/0512.html
These are the guidelines I follow, and I have the hopes that the browser market would start to adhere to (or at least attempt to) the standards,
The standard have holes in them. For true device independence, truly independent handlers such as (fpr lack of appropriate terminology) onactivation for onkeypress, and something like onactivatortriggererd for onmousedown/keydown or onactivatorreleased for onmouseup/keyup would be needed. Currently, even some of the "doubled up" event triggers only seem to cover mouse and key/switch activation, and don't cover things like voice...but I digress.
But I'm happy to respect that you follow the guidelines, but I must point out that it's not as cut and dry as you may think.
--
Patrick H. Lauke
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