Closed Bug 955598 Opened 10 years ago Closed 10 years ago

[a11y] Ensure the newtab is accessible

Categories

(Instantbird Graveyard :: Other, defect)

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: aleth, Assigned: benediktp)

References

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

*** Original post on bio 2158 at 2013-09-06 13:09:00 UTC ***

The next version of Instantbird will include a "new tab" which will hopefully provide a better, quicker way of starting conversations and opening chatrooms, similar in some ways to the Firefox awesomebar. This feature is being developed by Nihanth Subramanya (nhnt11) as a gsoc project. (Here is a somewhat out-of-date blogpost,
http://blog.instantbird.org/2013/07/first-milestone-of-the-awesometab-has-landed/ )

Current nightlies already include a useable (though not final) implementation of the awesometab. It would be great if nhnt11 could receive some feedback on how accessible it currently is, and what needs to be improved to make it work well with screenreaders!

Note the newtab will also include IRC channel LIST information (to find channels on connected IRC networks) if the pref chat.irc.automaticList is turned on.
*** Original post on bio 2158 at 2013-09-10 15:10:45 UTC ***

Adding a label to the richlistitems ([1], also bug 953853 (bio 412)) would be a good start.
You can use DOM inspector to check the "accessible properties" (right pane, select it from the drop down at top). Currently it shows strings like the following [2] as the "name" property (that's what's being read to the user from what I know).

  #chatdev Switch to conversation "Making IM not suck in Mozilla software!"

  Benedikt Contacts, Family, Instantbird Available


The latter string could (should?) be formatted similar to contacts on the contact list (we show buddies there but don't show tags, so it's not exactly the same).

[1] See http://lxr.instantbird.org/instantbird/source/instantbird/content/contact.xml#136 for an example.
[2] It collects the labels from the child elements to build this textual representation of the richtlistitem but that can be overridden by defining a "label" property on the richlistitem as said before.
*** Original post on bio 2158 by James Teh <jamie AT nvaccess.org> at 2013-09-12 02:32:10 UTC ***

I haven't checked it with chat.irc.automaticList enabled, but it looks quite usable to me as it is now.

(In reply to comment #1)
> Currently it shows strings like the
> following [2] as the "name" property (that's what's being read to the user from
> what I know).
Correct.

>   Benedikt Contacts, Family, Instantbird Available
> The latter string could (should?) be formatted similar to contacts on the
> contact list (we show buddies there but don't show tags, so it's not exactly
> the same).
I suppose you could format it like this:
Benedikt: Contacts, Family, Instantbird (Available)
However, to be honest, I don't think it matters that much. Arguably, users might care more about the status than the tags, so this might be better:
Benedikt (Available): Contacts, Family, Instantbird 
In short, I'm happy with it as is, but the last suggestion might make it better for some.

My only other thought (and it's not particularly important) is that tabbing is a bit strange. First you land in the filter field. If you press tab, you hit the list. However, if you press shift+tab, you skip over the filter field and end up on the tab control, which is asymmetrical. Also, if you press tab while on the list, nothing happens. I would have expected it to return to the tab control.
*** Original post on bio 2158 at 2013-09-12 10:06:38 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #2)

Thanks for the feedback!

> My only other thought (and it's not particularly important) is that tabbing is
> a bit strange. First you land in the filter field. If you press tab, you hit
> the list. However, if you press shift+tab, you skip over the filter field and
> end up on the tab control, which is asymmetrical. Also, if you press tab while
> on the list, nothing happens. I would have expected it to return to the tab
> control.

This should get fixed. It looks like the newtab binding's keydown handler should return early for the Tab key, like it does when a modifier key has been pressed. If we want to keep this bug about fixing the label, maybe we should file another bug to fix the keydown behavior. nhnt11? :-)
*** Original post on bio 2158 at 2013-09-14 11:04:07 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #3)

> pressed. If we want to keep this bug about fixing the label, maybe we should
> file another bug to fix the keydown behavior. nhnt11? :-)

This is filed as bug 955609 (bio 2168).
Blocks: 955013
Attached patch PatchSplinter Review
*** Original post on bio 2158 as attmnt 2953 at 2013-10-15 20:16:00 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #2)

> >   Benedikt Contacts, Family, Instantbird Available
> > The latter string could (should?) be formatted similar to contacts on the
> > contact list (we show buddies there but don't show tags, so it's not exactly
> > the same).
> I suppose you could format it like this:
> Benedikt: Contacts, Family, Instantbird (Available)
> However, to be honest, I don't think it matters that much. Arguably, users
> might care more about the status than the tags, so this might be better:
> Benedikt (Available): Contacts, Family, Instantbird 
> In short, I'm happy with it as is, but the last suggestion might make it better
> for some.

The attached patch changes the order as suggested in comment 2.
Additionally it swaps the order of "statustext" and "infotext" for chats to mention the account name before reading out a possibly very long topic message.

The first string below is for a contact with no status message, the next is for a context with a status message.

alethtest (Available): Contacts

benediktp@ymail.com (Away - Lunch): Family


The following two strings are for a chat room with no topic and for an already joined chatroom (see "Switch to conversation") with a topic message set.

#mictest (mictest@irc.mozilla.org): No topic message for this room.

#instantbird (Switch to conversation): Ask about Instantbird (http://instantbird.com) here!|Current version is Instantbird 1.4! :) |News: http://blog.instantbird.org/ |Nightlies: http://nightly.instantbird.im/ (for testing only) |IRC logs: http://log.bezut.info/ |Pastebin: http://pastebin.instantbird.org/ | Bugs: http://bugzilla.instantbird.org
Attachment #8354734 - Flags: review?(nhnt11)
Attachment #8354734 - Flags: review?(bugzilla)
Assignee: nobody → benediktp
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Comment on attachment 8354734 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

*** Original change on bio 2158 attmnt 2953 by jamie AT nvaccess.org at 2013-10-15 22:59:46 UTC ***

This sounds good to me and the code makes sense. However, note that I don't have any knowledge of the Instantbird code, so I'm not really able to comment on its correctness, etc.
Attachment #8354734 - Flags: review?(bugzilla) → review+
Comment on attachment 8354734 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

*** Original change on bio 2158 attmnt 2953 at 2013-10-16 08:50:24 UTC was without comment, so any subsequent comment numbers will be shifted ***
Attachment #8354734 - Flags: review?(nhnt11) → review+
*** Original post on bio 2158 at 2013-10-16 09:26:34 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #6)
> Comment on attachment 8354734 [details] [diff] [review] (bio-attmnt 2953) [details]
> Patch
> 
> This sounds good to me and the code makes sense. However, note that I don't
> have any knowledge of the Instantbird code, so I'm not really able to comment
> on its correctness, etc.

Nhnt11 was the reviewer for the technical part of the patch;) Thanks for helping us with accessibility, it is very much appreciated!
Whiteboard: [checkin-needed]
Whiteboard: [checkin-needed] → 1.5
*** Original post on bio 2158 at 2013-10-18 11:14:59 UTC ***

http://hg.instantbird.org/instantbird/rev/3028ff9c1943
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Whiteboard: 1.5
Target Milestone: --- → 1.5
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