WAI-ARIA: TreeView doesn't provide keyboard support despite EnableAriaSupport="true"

[A]

After having enabled WAI-ARIA support for the RadTreeView, I cannot navigate to the TreeView items using Tab.

The items in the TreeView are not focusable.

Is this probably a bug? Or do I need to set another property to get keyboard support for reaching/collapsing/expanding nodes?

[Anton]

Hi,

After setting the EnableAriaSupport property of the RadTreeView to true you also need to add the following tag to your RadTreeView control: <KeyboardNavigationSettings CommandKey="Alt" FocusKey="M" />. 
You can check the following example:

http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/treeview/examples/wai-aria-support/defaultcs.aspx?isNew=true

You can find more about Keyboard support here:

http://docs.telerik.com/devtools/aspnet-ajax/controls/treeview/accessibility-and-internationalization/keyboard-support

Regards,
Anton
Telerik by Progress

[A]

Hello, Anton,

please pardon my late reply. I caught a cold last week. ...

The issue I'm facing is not dealt with by KeyboardNavigationSettings, as this setting still doesn't enable Telerik controls to be reachable by the TAB key on the keyboard (which is an WAI-ARIA requirement). You can reproduce this issue from the example you have provided: Try to reach the control by hitting the TAB key - you won't be able to.

Actually, after fiddling around a bit I learned that in addition I need to set the TabIndex property to "0"; so Telerik controls will be able to gain focus by hitting the TAB key repeatedly.

Since adding TabIndex="0" is a requirement for being WAI-ARIA compliant, I propose to have this property automatically set (with value "0") when the TabIndex property is not provided and EnableAriaSupport="true".

Or there should be a remark on the corresponding help pages for EnableAriaSupport stating that it's s formal requirement to additionally add a TabIndex property to a Telerik control for them to fully comply with the WAI-ARIA proposal.

Cheers,
Axel

[A]

PS: My observation seems to only work with the RadTreeView control. Applying TabIndex="0" to the RadPanelBar doesn't add the corresponding HTML to the RadPanelBar. (I may be redundant on the RadPanelBar anyway as it contains tabbable elements.)