Accessibility: Put Status Line Information In a Footer Tag

[jhomme]

Issue Type: Feature Request

Doing this will automatically create a landmark that screen readers can use to easily find status information.

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.46.0-insider (da98a19, 2020-05-20T22:21:02.272Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.18362

[isidorn]

Status line information is already captured by the role status. Thus your screen reader should read when you tell it to read status bar inforamtion. Though note there is an issue on the nvda side
nvaccess/nvda#11064

Can you elaborate what you mean by the "Footer Tag"

[jhomme]

Hi, <footer> Status info goes here. </footer>

[isidorn]

Yes, but what would be gain by it.
@joanmarie does Orca handle footer tags in any special way?

[jhomme]

Hi, It would create a landmark. Screen readers have special functions for jumping among landmarks. Right now the only landmark is main. The screen reader user could go into Browse mode, press one or two keys, and they’d be at the top of the status information, and review it.

[isidorn]

Assigning to June so we can experiment with this then.

[isidorn]

Just tried changing our Status Bar Part to not be div but a footerand seems to work just fine.
Alternatives are: leave it as it is, or introduce two footers, one for left side and one for right side. Or to introduce a new elemetn between the part and the left and right which would be the footer containing them

@bpasero toughts if we change this?
@MarcoZehe thoughts on the usefullness of using a footer element for the status bar.

[bpasero]

My understanding is that footer is just a div so it is probably fine. However my understanding was always that you do not have to use the semantic HTML elements and can do everything through ARIA roles and div too.

[isidorn]

Exactly. We already set the appropriate ARIA roles, but it seems there would be additional benefits as @jhomme mentions. Though let's wait for more community feedback.
And yeah footer is just a div

[isidorn]

After similar feedback from the accessibility channel I decided to change this.
Makes sense to make the status bar more easily dinstuigishable in the HTML structure.

@jhomme try it out with VS Code insiders in a couple of days and let us know how it goes.

[jhomme]

Hi, Thanks much all. Love this. Jim ========== Jim Homme Skype: jim.homme FreeChess: jhomme Twitter: jimhomme <https://twitter.com/jimhome> Facebook: jimhomme Website: jimhomme.com <https://www.jimhomme.com/> From: Isidor Nikolic <notifications@github.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2020 3:39 PM To: microsoft/vscode <vscode@noreply.github.com> Cc: Jim Homme <jhomme1028@gmail.com>; Mention <mention@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [microsoft/vscode] Accessibility: Put Status Line Information In a Footer Tag (#98376) After similar feedback from the accessibility channel I decided to change this. Makes sense to make the status bar more easily dinstuigishable in the HTML structure. @jhomme <https://github.com/jhomme> try it out with VS Code insiders in a couple of days and let us know how it goes. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#98376 (comment)> , or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABRUZJI6JQ5C2QHY5D6VADDRV7ONXANCNFSM4NHYKZAA> .

[isidorn]

@jhomme based on your comment adding verfied label