411533 - Default tab-order skips Radio, Checkbox and Select form fields

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 349357

(Firefox :: Disability Access, defect)

Description

[Brian Lopez]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/523.10.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.4 Safari/523.10.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

This appears to only exist with FF for mac. The win32 version works as expected, hitting every field in a form by default.

A workaround exists which involves adding/changing the value of a preference called "accessibility.tabfocus" to "7". Is there a specific reason every other browser hits every form field by default, except for FF on OSX?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Find/build a form on a page with either a select box, checkbox or radiobox field
2. Try to tab through the fields, notice it skips the mentioned fields
Actual Results:  
Radio, Checkbox and Select fields are skipped

Expected Results:  
Radio, Checkbox and Select fields should be hit by default tab order

Comment 1

[Brian Lopez]

I also tested this with FF 3.0b2 for OSX, with the same results.

Comment 2

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

On Mac, this is controlled by the OS. In your system preferences, there should be section called "Keyboard and mouse" (or something like that). In the shortcuts tab, at the bottom, there should be a radio button where you can set all controls to be included in the tab order. Please resolve this as Invalid if it works for you after you've done that.

Comment 3

[Brian Lopez]

Changing the system preference "fixed" the issue.

But my concern isn't that FF is skipping these fields by default, so much that it is the *only* browser on OSX (from my testing) that has this behavior. Even with the system preference left default (to skip), Safari doesn't even skip form elements.
I think that system preference may be in regards to acutal OSX client applications, and not "web page" behavior. At least from what I can tell in my testing...

If there is no intention to fix this behavior in OSX, I will mark this bug invalid. But I await a reply.

Comment 4

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Sorry, I missed that you where talking about web pages (and that's not because you where unclear, reading the summary it's pretty clear).

Comment 5

[Brian Lopez]

I'm no C coder, and admit I've never even looked at the source for FF or Gecko, but if there's anything I can do to help get this fixed, please let me know.

Something of note, Camino's tab order with web forms works as expected. (hits every field)
I'm not sure which branch of Gecko it's based on, but I'm assuming there may be some code that can be copied/pasted from that project?

Comment 6

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

This is actually known. It was done in bug 187508. Then there's bug 349357 which is pretty much the same as your report (only <selects>, though). The person who fixed bug 187508 is cc:ed on bug 349357. I can imagine that there's a reason why the preference is set the way it is (perhaps Apple HIG). Do you mean that *all* OSX browsers except Firefox has the same behavior as Safari?

Comment 7

[Brian Lopez]

I just tested these browser versions in OSX (in Leopard, but I'd assume similar results with Tiger), and found some more detailed, interesting results for you guys.

Opera 9.25 - doesn't skip anything
Camino 1.5.4 (gecko) - doesn't skip anything
Safari 3.0.4 (webkit) - doesn't skip anything

Shiira 1.2.2 (webkit) - skips buttons, radio and checkboxes
Shiira 2.2 (webkit) - skips buttons, radio and checkboxes

Flock 1.0.5 (branch off FF) - skips everything but textboxes
Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.5 - skips everything but textboxes
Firefox 1.5.0.12 - skips everything but textboxes
Firefox 2.0.0.11 - skips everything but textboxes

A clarification of what form elements are skipped should be that it appears FF and maybe Shiira are passing that system preference behavior to web pages, whereas none of these other browsers are. Including Safari, which tells me even Apple didn't (intentionally or unintentionally) want to pass this system preferences behavior to web pages.

I have no doubt Apple's UIG's specify the use of this system preference, but being as though a web-browser is hosting controls inside of a "canvas"-ed environment could be the difference we're seeing between how FF/Shiira is handling this, and everyone else. Meaning, this "canvas" is part of the custom nature of the application, and is maybe meant to be programmed according to W3C spec instead of the UIG's of the OS?

My request (and I'm sure there's a line around the block as well) is that FF behave like everyone else regarding tab order *inside* web pages.

That being said, praise goes out to the FF developers for actually following the UIG for the OSX. That's a great thing to see actually go into practice.

Comment 8

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

(In reply to comment #7)

> Safari 3.0.4 (webkit) - doesn't skip anything

This is actually not true. Safari behaves exactly as your description of Shiira.
> 
> Shiira 1.2.2 (webkit) - skips buttons, radio and checkboxes
> Shiira 2.2 (webkit) - skips buttons, radio and checkboxes

Comment 9

[Brian Lopez]

My bad, while testing that I had that system preference turned on ;)
So maybe it's just select boxes that are being skipped in FF? As a difference between how Safari and FF treat tab order I mean...

Comment 10

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

yes - feel free to dupe ;)