Thanks Russ!
1 .Certainly adding some optional descriptive titles, optional access key, optional tab index (maybe not always required if you use a proper document flow and a browser that understands it?) etc. to the menus would be ideal - this could then be used in other menus. So you could end up with something like:
Home
descriptive title: could default to page title or menu if none given.
accesskey: default to none if none given (there are loads of problems using access keys - so an option)
tabindex: default to 0 ? (need to check out how this works in differing browser) if not given. Maybe would need to be not ncluded if not given?
Adding fields for accesskey, tabindex and title to the Options tab when adding/editing a page shouldn't be that hard. The good news is that with CMSMS 0.12 there will be a Menu Manager, which is a menu abstraction system that lets you decide exactly how the output of the menu will be, by changing default templates or adding your own.
Most likely we'll include these fields for Add/Edit page and then these fields will also be in the default menu templates, meaning that if they are empty nothing is output (or title can be the page title), but if they are filled they are output with the information that has been entered.
2. Optional (and optional traget) skip links for main and possibly sub menus. e.g for a top menu
What would you think of having skip links in the default templates instead? That's how they are usually used, links separate from the menu, at the very top of the source code. But that is indeed important and will be in the 0.12 default templates.
There is a debate whether it is better to use skip links or simply let the content come before the navigation in the source code. I have never used a screen reader myself, but I suppose that it wouldn't harm with skip links in either case?
Making templates with content before the navigation is easy with a vertical menu and doable (but a bit more complex for the user to customize) with a horizontal menu. On a site I'm working with right now I have a horizontal menu and a vertical submenu, both of which come after the content in the source code:
www.oppnakanalenvaxjo.se/test
That is basically using the
CSS Framework at Content With Style, which is using the same HTML for all kinds of different layouts but changing the layout only by CSS. That article in turn borrows ideas from an
absolutely positioned menu technique.
The current default templates are built from the above-mentioned CSS Framework, but for sake of easier customization unfortunately adapted in a way that left out some of the good points (like accessibility things) of that framework (which was before I was knowledgable enough of accessibility).
An alternative default template could be built on the
YAML framework, but that is not likely to be for 0.12 (although it soon will be easy to download themes from the CMSMS Themes site).
2. As a minimum for use in the headers :
The latest cms_selflink can do previous/next. But as you point out, there are problems with modules that are using the content list (like Cataloger, not sure if there are other modules that do the same), as well as when the next/previous link has the link content type. But using cms_selflink for the above would also be easy to insert in the default templates. Good point!
As for other header links, I suppose that has to be up to each and everyone to insert in the template, depending on what pages they use on their site. Well, sitemap may be good to link to also, but not everyone includes a sitemap in their page structure. The good thing, however is that cms_selflink doesn't generate a link if a page with that alias doesn't exist.
3. A proper search which provides a search on everything, including modules and that is accessible.
This is in the
roadmap for 1.0.
4. A simpe image plugin or module which effectively allows you to click on a thumbnail and open it in an other page with classes for CSS. My children would love this. Kind of a post and view in another page scenario - perhaps with some other data fields? I know Cataloger does this but see problem above.
Not sure I fully understand what you mean. Kind of like an image gallery? Or inserting an image anywhere in a page and with parameters decide the size of the thumbnail and automatically with a link to the full image?
With 0.12 there will be an {image} tag that lets you insert an image anywhere on a page or in a news article. But as far as I know it doesn't create a thumbnail or link to a full-sized version of the same image. That would have to be done manually in that case. But maybe it can be adapted to do this also, which most likely would be for 1.0 if so (a beta of 0.12 for testing is due out in a few days).
Thanks a lot for your suggestions, this helps us make sites made with CMSMS more accessible!
