1819276 - Navigating the message list with `Page up/down`, `End`, or `Home` does not communicate the selected message to screen readers

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Peter Vágner]

Attachment: state-changed.py

This is on linux with:
* Thunderbird daily 112.0a1 (2023-02-27) (64-bit)
* at-spi2-core 2.46.0
* python-atspi 2.46.0

	### The problem

	When scrolling the message list to display content that is not currently visible on the screen, assistive tools are not properly notified what message has became selected as a result of the scrolling.

Steps to reproduce

• Launch attached state-changed.py in a terminal
• Notice the launched script is printing content to the terminal when focus changes within thunderbird.
• Navigate to the message list
• Press up or down arrow key and notice script is printing details about the message that is selected in the list.
• Now press page up / page down / home / end key to scroll the list
• Observe the item you have scrolled to is missing in the terminal output.

Actual results

When scrolling the selected item is not communicated to assistive tools.
Instead a pannel is reported to receive the focus.

Expected

Eventhough it might be delayed a little I think focus change to the new item should be reported to assistive tools after scrolling.

Comment 1

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Elizabeth, can you investigate this and confirm that the screen reader don't pick up when jumping to the end or the start of a long list of messages?

Comment 2

[Peter Vágner]

By further investigation I have understood focus events are important not state changes in this case.

Comment 3

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] from comment #1)

Elizabeth, can you investigate this and confirm that the screen reader don't pick up when jumping to the end or the start of a long list of messages?

Yes, I will test this.

Comment 4

[Peter Vágner]

When considering the final patch from the bug 1820604 The focus moves to the table rather than the pannel when navigating by huge increments in the list. Knowing this will hopefully help to address this too.

Comment 5

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

I tested this with NVDA on Windows 11. When scrolling using Page Down, sometimes instead of announcing the message NVDA will announce "List." If I continue to use Page Down after hearing "List," nothing is announced, though visually I moving down through the list.

Comment 6

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

Un-assigning myself, as I have confirmed this is indeed a confirmed bug.

Comment 7

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

I notice that Page Up and Page Down work more consistently than Home and End. I haven't been able to get the message to read with Home and End. But I have been able to with Page Up and Page Down. It seems that "List" is read when pressing "Page Down" or "Page Up" right after itself without giving the screen reader time to read more of the message subject. If I move quickly to the next Page Up/Down, I will hear "List."

Comment 8

[Peter Vágner]

I have moved to a new seemingly more powerfull computer during last few days and now I can confirm page up / page down sometimes read the focused item. It's not 100% reliable though. I can still reproduce the issue by pressing page up or page down several times quickly e.g. three times is enough. Orca will report Multiselect list with x items and not the message that has received the focus.

Comment 9

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

After investigating this, I have found that the problem is that the content has not yet loaded before the screen reader tries to read it. Alex suggested that this might be the problem and I looked into this suggestion further.

I am working on a fix. I want to ensure the content has loaded before the screen reader reads information from the message.

Comment 10

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

Attachment: WIP: Bug 1819276 - Fix screen reader navigation in message list.

• Troubleshooting only so far, fix forthcoming

Comment 11

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

Attachment: Bug 1819276 - Fix message list page up and down scrolling. r=#thunderbird-reviewers

r=#thunderbird-reviewers

Comment 12

[Peter Vágner]

I have just found out the list of contacts in the addressbook has the same issue. Can this be generalized or shal I file a new issue?

Comment 13

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

(In reply to Peter Vágner from comment #12)

I have just found out the list of contacts in the addressbook has the same issue. Can this be generalized or shal I file a new issue?

Please file a new bug. Thank you for finding this. Please cc me on the bug. Thank you!

Comment 14

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

(In reply to Elizabeth Mitchell from comment #13)

(In reply to Peter Vágner from comment #12)

I have just found out the list of contacts in the addressbook has the same issue. Can this be generalized or shal I file a new issue?

Please file a new bug. Thank you for finding this. Please cc me on the bug. Thank you!

I have added bug 1826518. Please add more details there if you have any more information. Thank you!

Comment 15

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

Attachment: Bug 1819276 - In TreeView, set aria-activedescendant only once the row exists. r=elizabeth

Setting to the active descendant attribute to an ID that doesn't exist confuses things. Instead, do it when the active row is added to the table.

Comment 16

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/05af76ed3b44
In TreeView, set aria-activedescendant only once the row exists. r=elizabeth

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9328748 [details]
Bug 1819276 - In TreeView, set aria-activedescendant only once the row exists. r=elizabeth

[Triage Comment]
Approved for beta

Comment 18

[Daniel Darnell [:dandarnell]]

Thunderbird 113.0b4:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/557487c83c42