[whatwg] Scoped tabindex proposal

[Simon Pieters]

Hi,

Currently if you want to use the tabindex to change the tab order you mostly 
have to specify tabindex on all links and form controls prior to the area 
you want to modify the tab order, because otherwise that area would be 
before all prior elements in the tab order, which in most cases isn't 
wanted. Therefore there's a need to scope tabindex somehow.

So here's an idea. A new value for the tabindex attribute, "scoped". Here's 
an example:

   <p>The following links should be focused in the order which the link text 
indicates:
   <p><a href="#">first</a>
   <table tabindex="scoped">
    <tr>
     <td><a href="#" tabindex="1">second</a>
     <td><a href="#" tabindex="3">forth</a>
    <tr>
     <td><a href="#" tabindex="2">third</a>
     <td><a href="#" tabindex="4">fifth</a>
   </table>
   <p><a href="#">last</a>

The table itself is not in the tab order and is not focusable.

I'm not sure if we need another attribute or something for this instead as 
.tabIndex is a long and not a DOMString. Or perhaps we could say that all 
elements that have a tabindex attribute is a scoping element, so that 
authors can use tabindex="-1" on the table instead.

Here's a pointer of where this (or something similar) is called for:

   http://accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6034

Regards,
Simon Pieters