Enhance accesibility by using instead of

Hi @derivationfr,

Thank you very much for reporting this issue, that shall definitely be implemented in upcoming v2.6.0 where Footnotes is becoming AMP compatible and improves accessibility thanks to AMP-WP @milindmore22 and @westonruter code contributions. Thanks to your code contribution, accessibility of pages using Footnotes is further improved now as it’ll be (in two days) 7?years that the plugin is available on www.ads-software.com.

As a consequence, we apologize to all disabled visitors of pages using Footnotes, who are impacted by the plugin’s lack of accessibility. I wasn’t aware. Also perhaps may I disclaim that despite my label, I’m not the plugin’s author, only functionally a maintenance programmer, and basically a user coming up with a bunch of bug fixes 5?months ago.

Additionally to the missing web semantics in the reference container, where thanks to your advice, the footnote numbers column shall now be made of table header elements with a scope attribute hinting that they are row headers, the footnote referrers cannot get focus when the user moves the focus using the tab key, except when hard links are enabled (and the footnote referrers are default-focusable); and then the tooltips are inaccessible if not implemented with pure CSS following @milindmore22, and using the :focus-within pseudo-class selector following @westonruter.

What has been done for AMP compatibility now needs to benefit all users even without the AMP-WP plugin. Alternative tooltips using CSS for transitions, and a bit of JavaScript to toggle display, are available since v2.1.1 to fix a configuration-related tooltip outage, thanks to @andreasra feedback. Only now I’m realizing that on the website using them first, as well as on any website using the Footnotes plugin’s default mode relying on jQuery, footnote referrers and list cannot be reached with the Tab key used instead of the mouse or touch screen.

Fixing these bugs is now top priority.

Thanks a lot for your contribution and report, and for the very useful resource on Accessibility Basics that you kindly shared the link to the amazing Table Accessibility investigation and best practices!

We’re having the pleasure to add your username to Footnotes’ Contributors, list updated at every release.

Best regards.

@derivationfr

Accessibility was the main reason the upcoming WPForms bugfix version 2.5.11 is based on 2.6.0d7, not 2.5.10 as envisaged. All table header cells were indeed already implemented when the WPForms bug was reported, and were kept along with the also added table captions, existing for screen readers while invisible to sighted users, as advised in https://a11y-101.com/development/tables that you shared.

Also as stated above and in conformance with WCAG
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#keyboard-no-exception, footnote referrers have been made keyboard focusable even when not hard-linked. Currently tooltips don’t show up on focus in jQuery mode though, while they do in AMP compatibility mode.

2.6.0 cannot be released unless these accessibility bugs are fixed, but 2.5.11 shall be available as an unreleased tagged version for individual download while 2.6.0 is pending. This new policy is designed to mitigate the problems that the Footnotes plugin was affected by during 4?months, from November?2 until March?1st, with often too frequent releases, and twice disastrous accidental outlets. We beg your pardon and ask you to not take issue with 2.5.11 not becoming a release.

If you would like to look into v2.5.11d7 currently at https://downloads.www.ads-software.com/plugin/footnotes.zip we’ll highly appreciate your feedback like your above issue report.

Hi @derivationfr,

The announced urgent bugfix v2.5.11 has just been committed and is now available for download from https://downloads.www.ads-software.com/plugin/footnotes.2.5.11.zip. As the Stable?Tag remains 2.5.10, neither one-click update nor automatic update will work for this version. That is because v2.6.0 is not ready yet, and because of the release frequency concerns outlined above. But the full v2.6.0d7 with all the accessibility bug fixes implemented so far is part of v2.5.11.

Should anything not meet your expectations and/or any accessibility recommendations and/or requirements, be sure to keep in touch, following up in this topic or opening a new one, and we’ll be happy to contribute further.

Thank you for helping improve accessibility of pages using Footnotes!

Many thanks for caring about accessibility and for your prompt reaction! We have setup 2.5.11 and no issues so far. Best regards!

@derivationfr,

Thanks a lot for your assessment and feedback!

We’re happy that the fixes work out as expected.

Thank you for the great work you are performing!