WordPress 6.9 brings extensive accessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) improvements across WordPress Core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/, continuing the goals to meet web content accessibility standards throughout WordPress and make it easier to author accessible content. These updates include changes to administration, customization, login and registration, bundled themes, and the block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor.
Core
Improvements to WordPress Core include 33 accessibility enhancements and bug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fixes. Major changes include numerous new or improved screen reader notifications, a complete update of CSS Cascading Style Sheets. generated content to ensure no excess content is spoken, and code changes to ensure proper semantics and improved focus management.
Administration
- #47101 – Improve accessibility when deleting terms via AJAX: color contrast & spoken message.
- #48655 – Improve the “Add-item” function in menus (esp. for pages)
- #63118 – Hide “Skip to Toolbar” shortcut on small screens within admin (and super admin)
- #63126 – Theme preview model and Media library model having issues with Shift/Ctrl + Shift next and previous arrows.
- #63449 – Low color contrast for <code> elements in description text on Settings > General page
- #63546 – Fix unclosed li element in plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party-editor.php
- #63603 – Replace deprecated / non-standard CSS for `speak` and `aural`
- #63723 – On the Add New plugin page, put the Add Plugins screen description above the filter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. menu
Customizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings.
- #42078 – Customize: fix the color hue picker HTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. and accessibility
- #47579 – Customizer “Select logo” and “Select site icon” look like drop areas, but are buttons.
- #50696 – UI User interface & Accessibility issues in customizer menus section
- #63011 – Customizer: The back button is not keyboard focusable
- #63832 – Loss of focus when setting or changing the Site Logo or Site Icon in Customizer
Editing
- #63460 – Increase color contrast for embed template
- #61959 – Enhance Support for `popovertarget` and `popover` Attributes in Native Browser Popover API An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.
Login and Registration
- #63281 – Password field has wrong focus on installations
- #63286 – User profile first name, last name, nickname and email fields should have autocomplete attributes for accessibility
- #48345 – Add Caps lock message to login screen
Media
- #63114 – No screen reader announcements for upload image errors
- #63238 – Remove `target=”_blank”` from Browser Uploader Link
- #63239 – Button focus visibility issue in media upload page
- #63571 – Excessive Spacing Between Right Sidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. Items in Edit Media Screen on Mobile View
- #63973 – Add Media Button missing aria-haspopup and aria-controls
Miscellaneous
- #40428 – Introduce best practices to hide CSS generated content from assistive technologies
- #44267 – Privacy Request List Table: A way to show the time of request when it’s older than 24 hours.
- #63030 – Update CSS for `::-moz-placeholder` color
- #63620 – Remove translator comments when hidden text matches visible text
- #63950 – Tabbing through database upgrade screen shows “WordPress” text over logo
Bundled Themes
- #10219 – “Older Entries” and “Newer Entries” links are wrong when entries displayed in ascending order
- #44656 – Multiple themes: Empty site title leaves empty anchor tag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.) in header The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes.
- #52116 – Twenty Twenty: Menu + Search can cause a scroll jump on close
- #63875 – Twenty Twenty-Two and Twenty Twenty-Five: <pre> tag overflows container, causing horizontal scroll
Widgets
- #63531 – Category The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. dropdown does not meet WCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. 2.2 A on windows and some linux systems
Gutenberg
Changes within Gutenberg include 44 accessibility fixes and enhancements, including the addition of new blocks and the block Notes feature that have undergone accessibility reviews. Numerous fundamental components have had accessibility improvements to ensure that interfaces across the editor are more consistent and understandable.
Blocks
- #68662 – Cover: Fix placeholder color options keyboard accessibility
- #68909 – Site Title: Fix logic for ‘aria-current’ attribute
- #69628 – Site Title: Prevent saving and rendering a value made of only spaces
- #69689 – Navigation Link, Navigation Submenu: Remove the title attribute controls
- #69821 – Social Icons: Remove custom placeholder state
- #69837 – Navigation block: fix submenu Escape key behavior
- #70139 – Button Block: Add HTML Element selection in Advanced settings
- #70192 – Button: Avoid focus loss when unlinking using keyboard
- #70210 – Columns block: Don’t use ToolsPanelItem for Columns setting
- #70730 – a11y Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility): Comments Pagination Nav Wrapper
- #64119 – Add Accordions Block
- #73177 – Fix a11y of descriptions and alerts for “Invalid A resolution on the bug tracker (and generally common in software development, sometimes also notabug) that indicates the ticket is not a bug, is a support request, or is generally invalid.” Nav Items
Components
- #67792 – Improve the EntitiesSavedStates modal dialog design and labeling
- #69011 – Remove non translatable additional info from font size picker visual label and improve labeling
- #69441 – ARIA: Fix invalid `DropdownMenu` children structure
- #68633 – Global Styles: Prevent Unwanted ItemGroup List Rendering in Border Panel
- #68542 – Button: Update hover styles to account for pressed state for `tertiary button`
- #69609 – ActionModal: Add support for customisable `focusOnMount`
- #69904 – Add new HTMLElementControl component
- #70591 – `FormTokenField`: Fix focus lost on tab when `__experimentalExpandOnFocus` is set
- #70096 – Components: Fix label and placeholder handling in `LinkControlSearchInput`
- #70660 – Autocomplete: Prevent text cursor position loss when clicking to insert an item
- #70146 – Color Picker: Improve color picker slider focus styles
Data Views
- #67874 – Display Checkbox by default in dataviews
- #69876 – DataViews: Always show primary action for list layout if hover isn’t supported
- #71561 – DataViews: Custom `empty` elements are no longer wrapped in `<p>` tags to improve accessibility
- #72417 – DataViews: Use Text-Based Links for Primary Actions
- #72501 – Dataviews: Make bulk actions text based.
Editor
- #68481 – Fix CSS classes for the post editor iframe iFrame is an acronym for an inline frame. An iFrame is used inside a webpage to load another HTML document and render it. This HTML document may also contain JavaScript and/or CSS which is loaded at the time when iframe tag is parsed by the user’s browser. body.
- #68975 – Close patterns modal on insertion and focus on inserted pattern
- #69305 – Swap fullscreen mode snackbar notice message.
- #69334 – InputControl: Ensure consistent placeholder color
- #69378 – Button: Remove fixed width from small and compact buttons with icons
- #69451 – Editor: Refactor the ‘PostVisibility’ component
- #69520 – Fix shift+tab from post title
- #69724 – Post Template Panel: Preserve parent modal when closing template creation dialog
- #68631 – Global Styles: Fix incorrect usage of ItemGroup in the Background image panel
- #69813 – Background Image Panel: fix focus loss
- #70128 – Global Styles: Move `Randomize colors` button to Edit Palette panel
- #70133 – Editor: Add label in`TextareaControl` in CollabSidebar
- #69278 – Toolbar: Adjust colors for dark mode support
- #70451 – feat: clarify label & add help text with link for Link Rel
Miscellaneous
- #69440 – Make password protected input fields consistent.
- #70091 – Templates: Add back button & fix focus loss when navigating through template creation flow
Acknowledgements
Props to @jorbin and @jeffpaul for reviewing this post.
#6-9, #accessibility, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-9
