Open Bug 1719520 Opened 4 years ago Updated 3 years ago

<xul:menulist> dropdown menus do not pop up on "space" keypress

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Disability Access, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Disability Access
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: henry-x, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [workaround: Alt+Cursor-Down])

Steps to reproduce

Most menus in Thunderbird have this problem at the moment (any that use xul:menulist). For example

  1. Open Preferences > Composition
  2. Focus the HTML style Font menu.
  3. Press "space"

Result

Nothing happens

Expect

Menu to pop open, similar to the behaviour of a html:select.

Without being able to open the menu, the keyboard user would have to cycle through each option one by one using the arrow keys. This has two problems

  1. The user cannot see the full list of options. They have to cycle through not knowing what they will select next.
  2. Each time they cycle through, the corresponding item will be internally selected, which means any side effects that are triggered by the corresponding selection event will be run for each item traversed through. This is especially bad given the previous problem: that the user wouldn't know what they are triggering.
Summary: (XUL) menus do not pop up on "space" keypress → <xul:menulist> dropdown menus do not pop up on "space" keypress

You can use Alt+Cursor-Down to open a menupopup of <xul:menulist>.

Whiteboard: [workaround: Alt+Cursor-Down]

I'd think it would be more useful if they would just pop open on a plain cursor down keypress also... navigating in a closed list really makes no sense, worse when it triggers everything along the way and you won't see what's coming. Bug 1635124 is a fallout from this poor design.

See Also: → 1635124

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #1)

You can use Alt+Cursor-Down to open a menupopup of <xul:menulist>.

Ah thanks, I did not know about this command. So this problem isn't as bad as I thought if there is a standard work around.

It's still lacking the "space" behaviour as html:select, but as we switch from xul to html this should get covered.

I'd think it would be more useful if they would just pop open on a plain cursor down keypress also... navigating in a closed list really makes no sense

html:select has the same up/down key behaviour. I think GTK menus have the same behaviour. In general, it is useful to have this for when the user knows the values and wants to be able to quickly switch between them, or wants to try out all the values. For example, a selector that chooses a theme, then you might want to be able to quickly cycle through each one and see the applied theme live.

So it makes sense to have as an option by default. I would be hesitant to deviate from this because a keyboard user would not expect it when the menu looks like any other. But the From input might be a good expection since it can switch between a menu and an input in appearance. When it is in the "input" mode (Customize From Address), then down arrow does open the menu.

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