Accessibility in EJ2 TypeScript Mention control

13 Dec 20244 minutes to read

Web accessibility makes web content and web applications more accessible for people with disabilities. Mention control provides built-in compliance with WAI-ARIA specifications. The WAI-ARIA support is achieved using the attributes such as aria-selected and aria-activedescendent.

ARIA attributes

The Mention control uses the Listbox role where each list item has an option role. The following ARIA attributes denote the Mention state.

Properties	Functionalities
aria-selected	Indicates the selected option.
aria-activedescendent	This attribute holds the ID of the active list item to focus its descendant child element.
aria-owns	This attribute contains the ID of the popup list to indicate popup as a child element.

Keyboard interaction

You can use the following key shortcuts to access the Mention without interruptions.

Keyboard shortcuts	Actions
`Arrow Down`	Selects the first item in the Mention list. Otherwise, selects the item next to the currently selected item.
`Arrow Up`	Selects the item previous to the currently selected one.
`Esc(Escape)`	Closes the popup list when it is in an open state.
`Enter`	Selects the focused item, and when it is in an open state the popup list closes.
`Tab`	Focuses on the next TabIndex element on the page when the popup is closed. Otherwise, inserts the selected popup list item and closes the popup list.

index.ts
index.html
import { Mention } from '@syncfusion/ej2-dropdowns';

// defined the array of complex data
let employeeData: { [key: string]: Object }[] = [
    { Name: 'Andrew Fuller', ID: '1' },
    { Name: 'Janet Leverling', ID: '2' },
    { Name: 'Laura Callahan', ID: '3' },
    { Name: 'Margaret Peacock', ID: '4' },
    { Name: 'Anne Dodsworth', ID: '5' }
];

// initialize Mention control
let mentionObject: Mention = new Mention({
    //set the data to dataSource property
    dataSource: employeeData,
    // maps the appropriate column to fields property
    fields: { text: 'Name', value: 'ID' }
});

// render initialized Mention
mentionObject.appendTo('#mentionElement');
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <title>Essential JS 2 Mention</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <meta name="description" content="Typescript UI Controls" />
    <meta name="author" content="Syncfusion" />
    <link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/28.1.33/ej2-base/styles/material.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/28.1.33/ej2-inputs/styles/material.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/28.1.33/ej2-dropdowns/styles/material.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/systemjs/0.19.38/system.js"></script>
    <script src="systemjs.config.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/syncfusion-helper.js" type ="text/javascript"></script>
</head>

<body>
    <div id='loader'>LOADING....</div>
    <div id='container' style="width:200px;">
        <label style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: 600;">Comments</label>
        <!--element which is the Mention target to list the suggestions-->
        <div id="mentionElement" style="min-height: 100px; border: 1px solid #D7D7D7; border-radius: 4px; padding: 8px; font-size: 14px; width: 600px;"></div>
    </div>
</body>

</html>