3593 - Can't use keyboard to navigate in pages

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(Core :: DOM: UI Events & Focus Handling, defect, P3)

Description

[cpratt]

You can't use the keyboard to tab between links on a page, or follow a link on
the page by pressing Enter. This is preventing us from testing things such as
the TABORDER attribute.

Sample HTML to see this:

<a href="http://www.mozilla.org" tabindex="1">mozilla.org<a>
<a href="http://www.netscape.com" tabindex="2">Netscape<a>
<a href="http://www.websitegarage.com" tabindex="3">Web Site Garage<a>
<a href="http://www.aol.com" tabindex="4">America Online<a>

Comment 1

[german]

Agreed. I am not sure though who is implementing this (raptor side or XPFE side)
or when this will be implemented, so I am forwarding to Don coz he'll know :-)

Comment 2

[don]

Set target milestone to M7.

Comment 3

[don]

We won't get to this until M11 ...

Comment 4

[Sean Richardson]

Adding Bug 16271 (Tab order of Form Controls in FORM) to dependency list;
it can't be properly tested until this is fixed for certain.

Comment 5

[Sean Richardson]

It looks like TABINDEX support has received some attention lately but isn't
finished yet: the testcase in bug 2642 allows TABINDEX navigation, but
messes up the ordering the second and subsequent times through the sequence.

Also, testing that bug was impossible without first giving focus to the
page explicitly by clicking anywhere on the canvas. For those who actually
*need* to be able to tab between page elements to use the browser without a
mouse, this isn't good enough.

This looks to be another symptom of a bug that is more general than first
noted: in bug 12280, keyboard scrolling does not work until focus is given with
a click. This should get fixed before bug 3593 is called fixed.

Comment 6

[Sean Richardson]

Navigator 4.7 seems to deal with the problem of getting focus onto the page
without using the mouse by including the Location Bar in the tabbing sequence,
before anything else.

This could also work in Mozilla - but it would still be better to give the
page itself focus for keyboard events once it starts loading, for the reasons
given in bug 12280.

Comment 7

[don]

This is one part of keyboard navigation that won't make it into beta 1.

Comment 8

[leger]

Moving all UE/UI bugs to new component: User Interface: Design Feedback
UE/UI component will be deleted.

Comment 9

[don]

Move to M16 for now ...

Comment 10

[leger]

Putting on [nsbeta2+][5/16] radar.  This is a feature MUST complete work by 
05/16 or we may pull this feature for PR2.

Comment 11

[don]

Move to M19 target milestone.

Comment 12

[leger]

Putting on [nsbeta2-] radar.  Removing [5/16] and [FEATURE].  would take for 
nsbeta3.

Comment 13

[verah (gone)]

Nav triage team: [nsbeta3+]

Comment 14

[elladan]

It's also impossible to navigate using the keyboard in linux, and one would
assume, everything else.  Shouldn't the bug specify more than just NT?

Comment 15

[Bill Law]

Chris,  we've decided to give keyboard navigation bugs lower priority.  Please 
adjust to P2 (or lower) at your discretion.

Comment 16

[cpratt]

Don't do it, Chris! I'm begging you! This makes Mozilla completely unusable for 
a fair number of users, myself included.

Comment 17

[johng]

law was too nice.  We demoted this during nav triage to P2, marking P2 now.  
Agreed that this sucks royally, but it sucks even more that in the last week our 
total P1 count for Don's team has grown (we are supposed to be down to 33, but 
are actually up to 53).  At that rate, we will not ship - for anyone.

Also adding keyword helpwanted because keyboard shortcuts is the #1 helpwanted 
request the Nav team has for mozilla.org.

If we want to get this fix in, we need mozilla help or need to finish higher 
priority bugs first.

Signed,
The evil voice of reality

Comment 18

[Chris McAfee]

Attachment: test file

Comment 19

[Chris McAfee]

This is working on linux, renders rectangles around links and
return visits the link.  Win32 & Mac, no rectangle renders and
return does nothing.

Comment 20

[Chris McAfee]

adding joki.

Comment 21

[Phil Peterson]

PDT thinks this is a P3, but it worksforme using today's Win32 build

Comment 22

[Chris McAfee]

Ah, urlbar is stealing focus.  Looks like this is WFM.
Click in the main body of the content to get focus,
then this is working.

Comment 23

[Claudius Gayle]

reassigning QA w/o even looking...

Comment 24

[WD]

Verified

Comment 25

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

well, i cannot tab btwn links when the page has tables...eg,
http://www.mozilla.org. will file a seperate bug for that (not sure if tables
per se are the cause, tho'...)