Make autofocus an user accessibility preference

[mmikkel]

Craft 4.4 removed autofocus from the CP (#12332, #12406). This makes sense, as the feature can represent an accessibility issue, or cause otherwise unwanted behaviour (#12324).

On the other hand; for authors who haven't experienced any issues with the autofocusing behaviour previously and who might prefer it, this change arguably makes the Craft AX a bit more cumbersome and will likely be seen as a regression.

Would it make sense to bring autofocus back, with a new accessibility preference to let users opt in or out?

[khalwat]

Agree, at least make it an option, with the current behavior (prior to the removal of autofocus) being the default imo.

[tomkiss]

The issue with autofocus is that its presence may pose an accessibility problem for some users (and for Craft in meeting WCAG success criterion).
So "opting-in" to disable it would imply that the user gets the least accessibility compliant version by default.

[brandonkelly]

We are going to be introducing a new onboarding wizard for new CP users, which will give them the ability to set their accessibility preferences right up front, before they jump into the rest of the CP. So it doesn’t really matter if the default preference is less accessible, as it will be very short-lived if undesired.

[mmikkel]

Looking forward to that wizard (IMO it should probably pop up for existing users as well, the first time they log in after the site has been upgraded to a version that includes it).

Also, assuming the wizard will have preferences' defaults checked (which is nice for people who may not care too much, and just zip through it), I hope to see the accessibilityDefaults setting retained. Even if the wizard lets users immediately set their individual preferences, it's still going to be useful for the developer to be able to define what the defaults should be, per project.

[khalwat]

Great plan -- similar to what Apple does!

[tomkiss]

Sounds great Brandon 💯

[brandonkelly]

I agree that this was a little heavy-handed, and should have come with a new “Reduce autofocus” accessibility preference. Reverted the changes for now (81a217e), and we will add a preference for it in a future release.

I also think if there were a config setting, having two settings; one for creation and one for editing would be helpful.

Two separate preferences feels a little overkill to me… even if autofocusing is less helpful when editing existing elements, it’s not going to hurt you if the title field were autofocused.

[mmikkel]

That's great, thanks a lot Brandon 🎉

[brandonkelly]

Craft 4.4.4 is out now, bringing back autofocus.

[brandonkelly]

Craft 5.0.0-alpha.10 was just released with a new “Disable autofocus” user accessibility preference (#14251).