Bug 15138 – Broken table cell navigation and row/header reading with VoiceOver

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: INVALID
• Component: Accessibility

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

The URL features a (relatively) straightforward financial table that seems to reveal some problems in how the combination of WebKit/Safari 3/VoiceOver is treating HTML tables.

For reference, here's how I currently have VoiceOver configured.

1. In Keyboard & Mouse within System Preferences, find the Keyboard Shortcuts
tab and select "press Tab to move the focus between all controls".
2. In Universal Access within System Preferences, tick "Enable access for
assistive devices".
3. Then Open the VoiceOver Utility, select the Navigation tab.
4. Tick all but the last item under General Navigation.
5. Tick only "VoiceOver cursor tracks keyboard focus" and "Keyboard focus
tracks VoiceOver cursor" under the Cursor Tracking
tab.
6. Tick both checkboxes under Text Selection Tracking.

To reproduce:

1. Load the referenced URL in Safari 3 with WebKit Nightly.
2. Start VoiceOver (command + F5).
3. Press ctrl + option + down until you reach the HTML Content.
4. Press shift + ctrl + option + right to interact with the HTML Content.
5. Press shift + ctrl + option + down to cycle through a (random?) series of elements until the VoiceOver cursor is in the table (you'll hear "Fund name").

Now:

1. You can use ctrl + option + right arrow to navigate between cells in a row. But in the 2nd header row ("Fund Name" to "Performance Details"), it jumps from the first to the final column, skipping 8 columns. In data rows, after the penultimate column, the VoiceOver cursor jumps to the lefthand navigation sidebar instead of moving to the final column (the link cells under "Performance Details").

2. Pressing ctrl + option + right arrow should read a row in a table in VoiceOver. But it does nothing when the VoiceOver cursor is in a row in this table.

3. Pressing ctrl + option + shift + C should read a column header in VoiceOver. But it does nothing when the VoiceOver cursor is in a cell in this table.

[David Kilzer (:ddkilzer)]

Is this a regression from Safari 2?

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Sorry, "ctrl + option + right arrow should read a row" in the initial report above should say: "ctrl + option + R should read a row".

VoiceOver's behaviour with Safari 2 was broken in slightly different ways:

1. The cursor using ctrl + option + right arrow does pass through all header cells in the second header row, but it does so in a nonsensical order and with a couple detours to the left-hand navigation menu thrown in.

2. ctrl + option + right arrow does move through each cell in data rows, including the last cell. However, /after/ the last cell, the cursor jumps out of the table and into the left-hand navigation menu. Then down a couple links of the menu and into the next row of the table.

3. VoiceOver pings in response to ctrl + option + R and shift + ctrl + option + C in Safari 2, so that hasn't changed.

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Hmm, also I think I meant to link to the simpler table at:

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/16/index.html

They exhibit similar issues however.

[James Craig]

URLs no longer valid, and config has changed significantly since then. Please file a a new bug if this one persists.