Text fields in Safari not playing nicely with VoiceOver

Category
Safari
Severity
Moderate

Description

On a webpage with a multi-line text field, I've noticed the following problems while trying to use the field. Single-line fields may do this too, but it seems most common with multi-line ones.

  • Arrow to the top or bottom, and you'll hear only the boundary sound. In other text fields in other apps, you'd hear the current line spoken as well.
  • Pressing the return key causes VO to say "new line", as expected. Pressing it subsequent times, though, does not announce anything at all, though further new lines are inserted.
  • Most problematic of all: vo-left/right don't move you out of text fields anymore, unless you stop interacting (even if you never interacted to begin with). If you move to a text field with text and then do anything with it, such as type or read with the arrows, try then to vo-left/right. You'll be stuck, able only to tab away. Even then, tab doesn't read the next item it lands on, though that's been a bug for a long time, I believe.
  • Related to the previous point, vo-arrow navigation doesn't match arrow navigation. Vo-arrow as you're stuck in the field, and get yourself to the bottom. Now release the vo modifier and, with Quick Nav off, hit right arrow. I'm always at the start of the field despite having moved to the bottom. Same for spellcheck; misspell a word somewhere, go to the start of the text with cmd-up, then hit cmd-semicolon. VO announces the word, but vo-shift-m to get suggestions and you find a menu related to the first word in the text field instead. This may predate Sierra, I'm not sure.

Bug First Encountered

macOS 10.12

How often the bug occurs

Sometimes

Status

Fixed

Fixed In

macOS 10.13

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