Paste notifications not read by screen reader

[Tomasz Jakut]

Steps to reproduce

1. Open ​http://nightly.ckeditor.com/17-04-11-06-09/standard/samples/
2. Press "Paste" button.
3. Check if screen reader is announcing notification correctly.

Expected result

Screen reader reads the notification.

Actual result

• Firefox + VoiceOver: screen reader announces "Firefox has new window", but reads notification only after clicking it.
• Firefox + JAWS: screen reader becomes muted when notification appears.
• Chrome + VoiceOver: notification is read, however ⌘+V is read as plus v.

[Marek Lewandowski]

Keep in mind that we support FF + JAWS. Anything other than that is just nice to have, but it's not our main focus here.

[Tomasz Jakut]

I've created PoC ​branch:t/16962-focus, which shows that adding [aria-live=assertive] to the notification fixes the issues, however it's worsening the interaction with the editor (it's not focused as long as the notification is shown).

[Marek Lewandowski]

Taking away focus is a no-go for us. We need either to troubleshot the issue on our end, or report a proper bug to product vendor if code is good.

[kkrzton]

The issue with this case is the fact that after pressing Paste button, the notification is shown and editable gets focused.

It seems that the focused editable has preceding order over notification (not matter aria-live or the fact that notification was add/shown before or after focusing editable) and notification will be announced after the editable.

For now it seems the only way is to focus the notification to force JAWS to read it (for 1 - 2 seconds) and then focus editable. However, I am still investigating.

[kkrzton]

The above (and this one) comment is based on tests with FF + JAWS.

Also I checked if focusing notification for some shorter amount of time ( < 500ms) before focusing editable (so toolbar -> notification -> editable) solves the issue but it does not help. The JAWS announces editable content first and then the notification.

[kkrzton]

The one important finding is that if there is another notification visible, the new one is announced instantly no matter the editable focus. It means that the issue is related to notifications area adding/removing order (​https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor-dev/blob/master/plugins/notification/plugin.js#L508). The whole area is attached/detached when notification is added/removed which may influence JAWS.

[kkrzton]

Also it seems that even when the notification area is not detached but empty the JAWS still does not announce new notification when it appears (when other notification is there it works fine). We may need to look closer how exactly elements are added/removed here and how JAWS reacts on manipulating those elements.

[Marek Lewandowski]

This issue has been closed here, see ​https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor-dev/issues/420#issuecomment-309416336 for more details.