openui / openui/open-ui

[toolbar] How to handle vertical toolbars?

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Description

Toolbars are commonly horizontal and so this is the default[1]. However, it's inevitable that some will be vertical, we've discussed the orientation attribute as a means to achieve this before. Perhaps defining that is enough and there's nothig more to do.

However, I think it would be good to have on record the thinking here.

  • What styles should be used to achieve the vertical UI? (writing-mode perhaps?)
  • Should changing styles affect the arrow-key directionality automatically?
  • Should that also affect aria-orientation?

I could see us defining a default horizontal behaviour and allowing orientation="vertical" to change that, but this comes against the desire for responsive design where a toolbar might want to become vertical on mobile?

[1] aria-orientation="false" is the default for the role, and inline is a default modifier in focusgroup for the toolbar behaviour.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the linked orientation issue (#1201) and the referenced aria-orientation and focusgroup behavior. Work through how writing-mode, arrow-key directionality, aria-orientation, and responsive changes should interact, and document the project's agreed guidance for vertical toolbars.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
css, html
Domain
accessibility, design, frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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