How to focus radio control using Javascript in IE? - javascript

Given the code below:
function test() {
document.forms[0].TEST[0].focus();
}
<form>
<input type="button" value="Test" onclick="test()" />
<input type="radio" name="TEST" value="A">A
<input type="radio" name="TEST" value="B">B
</form>
In IE6, clicking the button doesn't focus the control, unless I've already tabbed through the radio at least once, in which case it works. =/
Any idea how I should be focusing the control? The above works perfectly fine in FF of course.
Edit: I found that the control is being focused, except the highlight box around the radio button is not being rendered. (I can hit space to activate the radio button, and also use arrow keys to change the active button). So the question becomes: how can I force the focus highlighting box to render?

Actually it's focussing, you can test it by focusing the second item and after clicking the button click space, you can see the second item selected. This shows the items are getting focus but I think you mean the dashed selection after focus. I don't know how to do that.

There's an option in the Accessibility Advanced Options of Internet Explorer that says something like "Move the system cursor with selection or focus". It might be a solution if you have a way to propagate IE settings.
edit: it doesn't work

You can force any style for the focus' outline
function test() {
document.forms[0].TEST[0].focus();
}
/* if this CSS rule is overrode by another one, then strengthen the selector of this rule to make it more specific (or use "!important") */
input[name=TEST]:focus {
outline: 1px dotted blue;
}
<form>
<input type="button" value="Test" onclick="test()" />
<input type="radio" name="TEST" value="A" />
<input type="radio" name="TEST" value="B" />
</form>

Related

accessibility - grouped checkboxes where one checkbox has a related textarea

I have a feedback form where I am asking users for a reason for cancellation, something like this:
label {
display: block
}
button {
display: block;
}
<form>
<fieldset>
<legend> Reason for cancellation? </legend>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 1 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 2 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 3 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 4 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Other </input>
</label>
<textarea aria-label="other reason"></textarea>
<button> Submit </button>
</fieldset>
</form>
The textarea is related to the Other checkbox, i.e, it only gets activated if the user selects the Other option, otherwise it remains disabled
How do I represent that association in markup?
Should I group the checkbox and the textarea using another fieldset? I am not sure if this is semantically correct, and also in general this is discouraged.
https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/07/22/using-the-fieldset-and-legend-elements/#:~:text=It%20is%20possible%20to%20nest,fields%20belong%20within%20which%20fieldset.
Should I use something like aria-controls or aria-owns?
Would it be enough to just mention Other (Please fill the reason below) in the checkbox label, so that when the label is announced, the user can get to know that there is a textarea just after the checkbox which can be reached by tab
It might also be ok to change the UX to always allow the user to optionally fill in the text area for any of the selected reasons , so the text area can be part of the same fieldset and can be enabled all the time
NOTE:
I have seen some examples, specifically Google Forms, and Search Engine Journal.
Google forms solves this issue by placing the textbox next to the checkbox, the textbox is always enabled, and as soon as you focus on the textbox, the checkbox gets automatically checked.
Search Engine Journal, does not explicitly associate the controls, but they do mention it in the checkbox label, to fill in the reason below.
Answer on using ARIA
You can use aria-controls, it seems like a good fit for your case.
it looks more appropriate than aria-owns, see this question about difference between aria-own and aria-controls.
However, screen reader support is quite inconsistent, and even if it is supported, it's at the end quite rarely known and used by screen reader users.
Therefore, in addition, it's always good to add a precision in clear text like you suggest e.g. "Other reason (please explain below)". Adding that indication in the label of the checkbox is a good choice.
This added precision will anyway never by harmful to anyone, so you have no reason not to do it.
Answer on the UX design
If you have added the precision "please explain below", there's really no problem in enabling the textarea depending on the checkbox.
Simply, make sure that the textarea come after the enabling checkbox in tab order, so to ensure that the user won't miss it and won't need to go back and forth to fill it in.
Unless you have a weird design, it should normally already be the case.
The other alternative, checking the checkbox automatically when entering a reason is equally no problem, but you need to be more carful on when you do it:
Don't check the checkbox on focusing the textarea, otherwise keyboard only users will trigger it when they don't want to, and even normal users may click on the textarea and then change their mind
Don't check the checkbox on entering a character in the textarea. It's probably a bad idea because I may start typing something, and finally clear everything and change my mind
What about checkign the checkbox when the textarea loses the focus while being non-empty ?
You may, optionally, show a snackbar or something like that with aria-live=polite, telling that the checkbox as been checked automatically because you ahve entered something.
This kind of bonus indication on things modified automatically would be quite useful in more complex forms, but for your case as it is presented here, it's totally superfluous because the relationship is obvious.
You could just hide the textarea by default and let it show up with a small javascript to toggle a class to set display to block.
<body>
<form>
<fieldset>
<legend> Reason for cancellation? </legend>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 1 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 2 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 3 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox"> Reason 4 </input>
</label>
<label>
<input type="checkbox" class="otherCheckbox"> Other </input>
</label>
<textarea aria-label="other reason" class="otherTextarea"></textarea>
<button> Submit </button>
</fieldset>
</form>
</body>
<script>
let otherCheckbox = document.querySelector(".otherCheckbox")
let otherTextarea = document.querySelector(".otherTextarea")
otherCheckbox.addEventListener("change", e => {
otherTextarea.classList.toggle("show")
})
</script>
Added to css:
.otherTextarea {
display: none;
}
.show {
display: block;
}

radio button return false onclick

I have this form here and want each radio buttons not to be able to be checked. I dont want disabled because if one happens to be selected I still want that value to be submitted to the database. This is just a basic example.
When I click on one of them it checks, then does not allow me to click the other one.
I want both buttons not to be able to be checked.
<form action="here.php" method="post">
<input onclick="return false" type="radio" name="firstone" value="Yes" /> Yes
<input onclick="return false" type="radio" name="firstone" value="No" /> No
<input type="submit" />
</form>
Does anyone know how to fix this? I dont want to use javascript.
Rather than trying to prevent clicking on radio buttons. You should use a hidden element to contain the values to send with your form.
The only reason I can imagine you want to have them disabled, but not 'disabled' is because they look ugly when they're disabled.
How about you just change the CSS on the page?
:disabled CSS selector

Why customized radio buttons are not getting disabled?

I am using this plugin to customize check boxes and radio buttons on a page.
These radio buttons are in a div#Main element which comprise of some other HTML elements also. I need to disable everything in this div on a button click (I am using jQuery). For this I have the following code,
HTML
<input type="button" id="DisableElements" value="Disable elements" />
<div id="Main">
<input type="radio" class="styled" name="reg-all"/>
<input type="radio" class="styled" name="reg-all"/>
<select id="MyList">
<option value="1">Choice-1</option>
<option value="2">Choice-2</option>
</select>
<textarea id="Comments" rows="4" cols="5"></textarea>
</div>
Script
$(function(){
$('#DisableElements').click(function(){
$('#Main').find('*').attr('disabled', 'disabled');
});
});
Issue: Everything got disabled correctly except the radio buttons.
Behind the scenes, the plugin script hides the actual radio button and
put a span over the radio buttons like a blanket. This span has
got a background image sprite with different states (on and off) which
gets updated accordingly on radio button selection. This was the
working of this plugin.
I could have used the inbuilt method of the plugin to disable/destroy the functionality but I did not find any method for this.
images loads with little delay after the DOM has finished loading,
so you can try calling your function in $(window).load().
hope it will help.
The solution i made can be thought of as a patch but works nice (for my scenario at least). What should have been the right approach for this would be using some existing API method to reflect the change, something like disable() or similar but i did not find such method or something like this.
Solution: Making the radio buttons appear like disable (non clickable).
Because i do not want to dig into the plugin js file. For this i made a transparent div with some width and height enough to cover the radio buttons and place it over them like a layer between radio buttons and cursor. This div is hidden by default and show this while making controls disable. keeping it short and sweet, here are the code changes.
HTML
<input type="button" id="DisableElements" value="Disable elements" />
<div id="Main">
<div id="Blanket"></div>
<input type="radio" class="styled" name="reg-all"/>
<input type="radio" class="styled" name="reg-all"/>
<select id="MyList">
<option value="1">Choice-1</option>
<option value="2">Choice-2</option>
</select>
<textarea id="Comments" rows="4" cols="5"></textarea>
</div>
CSS - for blanket div
#Blanket
{
position:absolute; /*Imp: otherwise it will disturb the UI*/
width:100px;
height:100px;
display:none;
/* top/left adjustments, if required! */
}
Script
$(function(){
$('#DisableElements').click(function(){
$('#Blanket').show();
$('#Main').find('*').attr('disabled', 'disabled');
});
});
This solution however needed to drop the fear of what if someone using developer tools to out smart the application but that does not matter any way. Besides, you can-not 100% block the user from using such tools.
Another solution which worked and looks more appropriate: Placing invisible blanket over input controls sounds like a patch and can be easily snapped. The plugin script adds a CSS class named styled and requires to add following styles to achieve customized look and feel.
input.styled
{
display: none; // hides the parent input element
}
Because of this, even if we switch button states to disable, the changes did not reflect because the parent element was hidden making the other listeners difficult to attach. By changing the styles to following, everything worked.
input.styled
{
position: absolute;
opacity: 0;
}
It makes the parent input element invisible but completely active on DOM behind the scenes.

How to highlight input text field upon clicking it in Safari?

I would like the value of the input text box to be highlighted when it gains focus, either by clicking it or tabbing to it.
<html>
<body>
<script>
function focusTest(el)
{
el.select();
}
</script>
<input type="text" value="one" OnFocus="focusTest(this); return false;" />
<br/>
<input type="text" value="two" OnFocus="focusTest(this); return false;" />
</body>
</html>
When either input field is clicked in Firefox or IE, that field is highlighted. However, this doesn't work in Safari. (NOTE: it works when tabbing between fields.)
I noticed Safari is actually selecting the text then removing the selection quickly.
So I tried this quick workaround that works in all browsers:
function focusTest(el)
{
setTimeout (function () {el.select();} , 50 );
}
Edit :
Upon further testing it turns out the OnMouseUp event is clearing the selection so it is enough to add
onMouseUp="return false;"
to the input element for things to work as they should.
Not sure about a Safari-specific solution here, but an alternative would be to wrap the input element in a div and set the border properties of it via CSS. Then change border color, etc. when focused and unfocused.

How can I enable disabled radio buttons?

The following code works great in IE, but not in FF or Safari. I can't for the life of me work out why. The code is supposed to disable radio buttons if you select the "Disable 2 radio buttons" option. It should enable the radio buttons if you select the "Enable both radio buttons" option. These both work...
However, if you don't use your mouse to move between the 2 options ("Enable..." and "Disable...") then the radio buttons do not appear to be disabled or enabled correctly, until you click anywhere else on the page (not on the radio buttons themselves).
If anyone has time/is curious/feeling helpful, please paste the code below into an html page and load it up in a browser. It works great in IE, but the problem manifests itself in FF (3 in my case) and Safari, all on Windows XP.
function SetLocationOptions() {
var frmTemp = document.frm;
var selTemp = frmTemp.user;
if (selTemp.selectedIndex >= 0) {
var myOpt = selTemp.options[selTemp.selectedIndex];
if (myOpt.attributes[0].nodeValue == '1') {
frmTemp.transfer_to[0].disabled = true;
frmTemp.transfer_to[1].disabled = true;
frmTemp.transfer_to[2].checked = true;
} else {
frmTemp.transfer_to[0].disabled = false;
frmTemp.transfer_to[1].disabled = false;
}
}
}
<form name="frm" action="coopfunds_transfer_request.asp" method="post">
<select name="user" onchange="javascript: SetLocationOptions()">
<option value="" />Choose One
<option value="58" user_is_tsm="0" />Enable both radio buttons
<option value="157" user_is_tsm="1" />Disable 2 radio buttons
</select>
<br /><br />
<input type="radio" name="transfer_to" value="fund_amount1" />Premium
<input type="radio" name="transfer_to" value="fund_amount2" />Other
<input type="radio" name="transfer_to" value="both" CHECKED />Both
<br /><br />
<input type="button" class="buttonStyle" value="Submit Request" />
</form>
To get FF to mimic IE's behavior when using the keyboard, you can use the keyup event on the select box. In your example (I am not a fan of attaching event handlers this way, but that's another topic), it would be like this:
<select name="user" id="selUser" onchange="javascript:SetLocationOptions()" onkeyup="javascript:SetLocationOptions()">
Well, IE has a somewhat non-standard object model; what you're doing shouldn't work but you're getting away with it because IE is being nice to you. In Firefox and Safari, document.frm in your code evaluates to undefined.
You need to be using id values on your form elements and use document.getElementById('whatever') to return a reference to them instead of referring to non-existent properties of the document object.
So this works a bit better and may do what you're after:
Line 27: <form name="frm" id="f" ...
Line 6: var frmTemp = document.getElementById('f');
But you might want to check out this excellent book if you want to learn more about the right way of going about things: DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith
Also while we're on the subject, Bulletproof Ajax by the same author is also deserving of a place on your bookshelf as is JavaScript: The Good Parts by Doug Crockford
Why not grab one of the AJAX scripting libraries, they abstract away a lot of the cross browser DOM scripting black magic and make life a hell of a lot easier.

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