Re: [office] Proposal for Radio Button grouping

From
Bob Jolliffe <>
Date
2008-08-05T16:24:11+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [office] Proposal for Radio Button grouping
Thinking some more about grouping, I still don't see thast there is any need to have a group-name for radio buttons.  They are already logically grouped by the name.  I imagine a screenreader, for example, would treat the set in the same way as a select control and read "select w,x,y or z" for the named radio buttons.

Checkboxes (and other controls) on the other hand may indeed benefit from grouping in order to render the semantics of  "select all of the following which apply".  Perhaps this grouping could be reasonably achieved through a <form:frame> element which already does support <form:name>, <form:label> and <form:title> attributes.  As a recommendation one could then specify that all input controls which form a coherent group should be contained within a <form:frame> with a name/label/title which could be exposed to the accessibility API (regardless of whether this frame is a visible element or not).  This seems to be the closest equivalent of a html frameset.

Alternatively these, and perhaps all, elements should have a form:group-name attribute, but I prefer the approach above.

Regards
Bob

2008/8/5 Richard Schwerdtfeger <>

Rob, 

We will need to ensure there is a name we can expose to the accessibility API. Is form:group-name or name="string" the name of the group that will be rendered? If not we will need to add <svg:title> somewhere in there for the short name. 

Rich

Rich Schwerdtfeger

Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist

Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review  Board

blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer

Robert Weir/Cambridge/IBM@Lotus

Robert Weir/Cambridge/IBM@Lotus 

08/04/08 10:29 AM

To



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Subject

[office] Proposal for Radio Button  grouping

As you probably know, ODF currently defines the exclusive selection 

semantics of radio controls based on radio controls with the same name, 

similar to how this is done in HTML:

ODF 1.1, section 11.3.14:    "The <form:radio> element describes controls 

which act like check boxes except that when several radio buttons share 

the same control name they are mutually exclusive. When one button is on, 

all of the other buttons with the same name are off. If no radio button is 

initially on, the way in which the application chooses which button to 

turn on initially is undefined."

On today's ODF TC call the following ODF 1.2 proposal was discussed:   

http://wiki.oasis-open.org/office/Grouping_for_Radio_Elements

This proposal would add a form:group-name attribute to the form:radio 

element in section 11.3.14, as an alternative way to specify grouped radio 

buttons.  It is not stated how to resolve situations where both grouping 

methods are in simultaneous, possibly contradictory use.

The Proposer has requested a vote on this proposal for next Monday.  If 

the Accessibility SC has any comments, please send them to the TC by 

Friday.

Thanks,

-Rob

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