Meeting minutes
Check in for repo restructure project
Matt_King: what have you learned this last week Rich_Noah ?
Rich_Noah: we had some issues with the linter, but that's fixed. moving on to some other tests, hoping fixes will propogate
Rich_Noah: should know more by tomorrow
Matt_King: have we started looking into stopping actions that publish updates, with gh-pages?
Rich_Noah: yes, but the issue with the linter took longer than anticipated, we'll get back to it and sort out a plan
Multi-Select Listbox Keyboard Guidance
https://
<Matt_King> github: https://
Matt_King: essentially, this issue boils down to this selection model being less familiar than some others
Matt_King: i'm not sure i agree with the premise but i want to discuss this with the group
Matt_King: first question I have is: is there agreement or disagreement that the model we're using for listbox is unfamiliar?
sarah_h: i disagree, I think the APGs is better for usability, which I wrote about in more detail in my comment
Matt_King: there are several patterns where we document this kind of multiselect behavior with shift+arrow keys, then if you press an arrow key WITHOUT shift your selection disappears - it's well documented elsewhere
Matt_King: this begs the question - if we're gonna document it, should we demonstrate it or is it useful to demonstrate it? it's a lot of work...
sarah_h: i don't think we should
Matt_King: to me, the visual clue is that if the spacebar checks one (or when holding shift), and pressing an arrow key doesn't make checks go away, it feels very discoverable
sarah_h: i'm not opposed to making a note that it's different from the native select pattern
Matt_King: i thought we already had a note there
sarah_h: under multiselection, it does mention authors may use different patterns or choose among those modifier keys - it doesn't explictly state that this pattern is different from the native pattern
sarah_h: there's a note in the radiogroup pattern that notes differences between ours and native
Matt_King: when we were thinking about a note, i was thinking about it going on the example
sarah_h: me too - i think it makes more sense since the pattern shows BOTH
Matt_King: so should the note say it's different from browser native behavior?
sarah_h: i started drafting something before the meeting, maybe that would be good?
[sarah read her note]
Matt_King: i love that
MarkMcCarthy: +1
sarah_h: i'll add it to a comment on the issue
sarah_h: and figure out a PR
<siri> +1
Matt_King: maybe we'll put it under the notes section under the examples? or maybe accessibility features? You can decide which is most appropriate
sarah_h: notes is probably fine
MarkMcCarthy: +1
Matt_King: would you make it a PR against the move-examples branch?
Matt_King: that should sort out this issue then
New issue action planning
Matt_King: let's look at new issues now
Select-Only ComboBox pattern keyboard support clarifications
github: https://
sarah_h: currently the up arrow moves it to the selected item
Matt_King: what about if something isn't selected?
sarah_h: since 'choose a fruit' is an option, there's never not something selected
sarah_h: right now, the single select doesn't follow focus; we don't HAVE to send focus to the currently selected but...
Matt_King: i think we should, but I'm thinking about what the default state should be
Matt_King: what would happen if it WASN'T in the list
sarah_h: i don't remember why we put focus in there in the first place
Matt_King: how does HTML select work?
sarah_h: ours mirrors HTML select more - it's impossible to add a placeholder. if you need choose something, it HAS to be in the list
sarah_h: one of the nice things about building your own is you don't have to worry about things too much
Matt_King: what about open_ui?
sarah_h: that's even more flexible
siri: maybe one of the reasons we have that is if a user doesn't want to select ANYTHING
Matt_King: but if you want to return it to its default state of nothing, how do you do that if it's not in the list?
bryan: the way i've done it in the past with aria-select is to allow the spacebar to toggle/unset aria-selected
bryan: the way I was able to do that was, for the roving tabindex model, was to put tabindex=0 on the first item
bryan: after pressing the spacebar, you can tab away with nothing selected
Matt_King: we're combining two behaviors here - 1) selection doesn't follow focus so people can read items without triggering a change.
Matt_King: there's a common expectation though that pressing an arrow or letter will jump to that item, and tabbing away/on.blur leaves it selected
bryan: to me that's confusing
Matt_King: if we made selection follow focus, there's a thought that the display should change if that's the case
sarah_h: also the possibility of esc to cancel
Matt_King: i guess we could have selection follow focus and no tupdate input?
siri: in that case, wouldn't it act more like a radio button then? if there's no way to get back to default
Matt_King: the only way you can select an empty value in is to put an empty value in the list
<siri> https://
bryan: if we're going to have selection follow focus, that can cause trouble for mobile users
Matt_King: so the root question is, do we need the 'choose a fruit' option in the list?
Matt_King: i think it makes it more complicated if it's NOT there
sarah_h: i think it'd be possible to remove it from the list, and just make a 'none' option
sarah_h: the convention having the placeholder text in the list is a byproduct of no placeholder in a native select
+1
Matt_King: if you have 'choose a fruit' as placeholder, then at that point is 'none' selected?
sarah_h: yeah
Matt_King: so that doesn't move us anywhere then i guess
sarah_h: if you as an author want to give people an ability to move to null as an option, it's gotta be there. and 'none' makes more sense
Matt_King: if 'none' is selected, does the placeholder -only- show up on page load and no user interaction?
<siri> can you give correct link?
sarah_h: we could do whatever we'd want with that. we could also add it as a new option
Matt_King: so, are we proposing that, with this hypothetical one, that nothing is slected at all in the beginning - not choose a fruit, not none, nothing.
sarah_h: this is difficult because these considerations would be dictated by real world constraints
Matt_King: the reason up arrow goes to the first item in the list is because the first item is selected by default. if nothing were selected, it could move to the last item
sarah_h: correct
<siri> https://
Matt_King: until we have an attribute like aria-value, it feels like there has to be something selected by default
sarah_h: the idea of putting something in that's "not a real value" shouldn't matter much, as long as the actual value makes sense
sarah_h: exposing 'choose a fruit' as the programmatic value doesn't mean it has to be in the list
Matt_King: if it's not in the list at all, and if nothing is selected, if they press escape and tab away, it'd retain its initial state, then?
Matt_King: or, would there be no way to return it to its intial state?
Matt_King: it seems scenario dependent
sarah_h: in general, the idea of not being unable to return a form field to its virgin state isn't uncommon
Matt_King: that's true
Matt_King: i guess that's the crux of this discussion, and the answer is no, and a consequence of that is 'choose a fruit' isn't in the ilst, and the outcome of THAT is nothing is selected by default
Matt_King: and THAT means pressing the up arrow should select the last item rather than the first
sarah_h: the up arrow going to the last item IS different than an HTML select, but I think that's fine
MarkMcCarthy: i think that's fine too
Matt_King: to address the 'what is more' part --
sarah_h: oh that's a bug. it should go to the currently selected item, which may be different from the last selected item
Matt_King: that's a great catch
sarah_h: in summary, if an item is selected, and you open the combobox, focus goes to the selected. if nothing is selected, up/alt-up/down/alt-down goes to the first/last item if nothing else is selected
sarah_h: might need a slight documentation change
Matt_King: as a note, the linked example in this issue is from the editor's draft, not current
Matt_King: so it does need doc updating
Goodbye!
Matt_King: what a meeting today!
Matt_King: i appreciate your willingness, deeply sarah_h!
Matt_King: this will be good to do against the move-examples branch too
sarah_h: got it