dojo ui help

[Richard Schwerdtfeger]

Hi Joseph,

Set the aaa:activedescedent property on the parent with focus to the id of
the active child (that which is highlighted). Firefox should set the focus
for you on Windows and fire the appropriat focus change event. On
Gnome/Linux you should ge an activedescendent property change event fired.
If not, there is a bug in FF.

We used to use highlighting as a vehicle to do the same thing when we
developed offscreen models for screen readers.

Cheers,

Rich


Rich Schwerdtfeger
Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist
Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review  Board
blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer


                                                                           
             Joseph                                                        
             Scheuhammer                                                   
             <clown at utoronto.c                                          To 
             a>                        David Bolter                        
             Sent by:                  <david.bolter at utoronto.ca>          
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             s at fluidproject.or         fluid-work at fluidproject.org         
             g                                                     Subject 
                                       Re: dojo ui help                    
                                                                           
             07/12/2007 11:29                                              
             AM                                                            
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




I'm going to babble a bit about how Swing deals with this at a technical
level.  Maybe that will lead to something that has to do with a semantic
description of what is going on.

   1. Swing menus and menu items never get focus.  That is:
            they never emit focus events.
            they do, however, respond to keyboard navigation and activation
            keystrokes.
            the menu bar holding the menus is focusable, and retains focus
            as long as a menu is popped open.  In point of fact, the menu
            bar absorbs the key presses and figures out what to do with
            them.
   2. Menu items emit change events during navigation.   Thus, navigating
      from one menu item to another results in two change events -- one
      from the item moved away *from* and another from the item moved *to*.
   3. There is a menu manager who maintains a notion of the current menu
      path.  Using the menu example at the top of the page your reference,
      that path is "View/Toolbars/Bookmarks Toolbar".  Any object can ask
      the menu manager for the current menu path.
   4. Check box and radio button menu items can be selected or unselected
      (and emit selection events) in order to check or uncheck them.
Colin wrote:
      How about calling it "highlighted"?  :)

I know it's suggested somewhat in jest, but "highlighted" is nothing more
than a visual cue that something is about to happen with respect to the
last highlighted item in the menu path.  I think "armed" is a good way to
describe it.  That is, the last item is in a state that it will "fire" if
the user commits to that item.  Users commit either via the mouse
(releasing the mouse button), or a key press (enter or space).  They can
optionally cancel by backing out one item at a time (key press to go back
one level in the path, or mouse somewhere else), or cancel the path
completely by the escape key.

What happens upon "firing" depends on the nature of the menu item:  it
either opens a sub-menu, or a dialog, or some action takes place.  I guess,
then, that "armed" is only part of the information that needs to be given
-- one needs to also describe the potential results so that the user can
(a) choose which one they want to fire, or (b) back out (disarm).
--
;;;;joseph

I, man, am regal - a German am I
   - "Bob", W. A. Yankovic -
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