[focusgroupV2] Define when grid topology can be inferred automatically
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Description
Focusgroup V2 currently has two explicit topology paths:
focusgroup="grid"discovers native HTML table structure.focusgroup="grid manual"discovers direct-child rows marked withfocusgrouprow.
Native tables provide an unambiguous automatic case. Simple generic markup may also contain enough structural information to infer rows and cells:
<div focusgroup="grid" aria-label="Palette">
<div focusgrouprow>
<div tabindex="0">Bold</div>
<div tabindex="0">Italic</div>
</div>
<div focusgrouprow>
<div tabindex="0">Left</div>
<div tabindex="0">Right</div>
</div>
</div>
Inference becomes less reliable when markup contains wrappers or multiple plausible row levels:
<div focusgroup="grid" aria-label="Palette">
<div class="scrollport">
<div focusgrouprow>
<div tabindex="0">Bold</div>
<div tabindex="0">Italic</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
We should determine how much topology user agents can infer safely and where authors must provide explicit signals.
Questions to resolve:
- Is the presence of
focusgrouprowsufficient to select generic topology? - Which structural wrappers, if any, can be transparent to row discovery?
- What happens when multiple plausible row levels exist?
- How should mixed native and generic structures behave?
- Can mutations change the inferred topology mode?
- Is
manualstill useful as an explicit override or disambiguation signal?
When topology is ambiguous, invalidating the grid may be safer than selecting a plausible structure that can change unexpectedly. Authored ARIA roles should not select or alter focus topology.
Related:
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the Focusgroup V2 explainer sections on automatic table topology and manual row enrollment, then read the linked PR #1494 review discussion. Define rules covering generic and native structures, wrappers, ambiguity, mixed markup, mutations, and the manual override; the work is done when these behaviors are resolved and documented.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- html
- Domain
- accessibility, frontend
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100