Xiaocheng: Had a look at it … is an extension to the CSS multicolumn layout … propose an extension feature, when the columns overflow they should wrap to the next row … introduced column wrapping … left a comment in brainstorming … think this is a natural extension, seems useful … but the reading direction may not be intuitive … may be hard if this should be read from left to right or top to bottom … not sure if I'm asking to much … but adding page or column numbers could be interesing … will ask them … want to ask what developers currently do to achieve the same thing … alternatives considered, privacy & security considerations Matthew: Think this comment is great! Hadley: If you both agree, then I would suggest to ask them if they would update the explainer … otherwise they reply to us in the issue … which would be hard to find in the future … great idea to ask them Matthew: Expect this will go to pending: external-feedback? Hadley: I think so! Xiaocheng: I will post it.

Xiaocheng: we raised 2 issues - one is that the explainer isn't good enough and also ... naiive usage of column wrapping may confused user... there is no clear indication which one is the next column...

... they clarified this ... should be used in combination with other styles... e.g. row gap styling. Rationale is that indication of reading direction is not the job of this feature...

... I sugegst we close this one as "satisfied with concerns".. the spec should have a note saying that authors should use this with other features... to indicate reading direction.

Matthew: presumably if the user is using right-to-left system then the columns would wrap right-to-left? In comments... they talked about top to bottom, left-to-right...

Xiaocheng: I assume it would use the logical ...

Matthew: I'm pretty confident they would make it work using the logical properties...

Xiaocheng: yes ... [it would follow the logical flow] ... wraps in that direction...

Matthew: in the explainer they said "it's just normal navigation with tabs"... but not really... People who use assistive technologies, their UA and AT needs to know what order to present htings in. That comes from a combination dumb order and CSS. In my experience, normal column layouts work, so the work has been done in the browser engine to make that work.

Torgo: yes, I see in the explainer "there are no additional accessibility issues", and I feel like they should address this.

Matthew: Moving around content in columns does work, in my experience, and this doesn't change that. But hte next sentence, people with screen readers don't navigate with the tab key becuase they'd miss all the content.

Overall, they do know what they're doing. But the words they use are differnt than the words that accessibility people use. And I get it: a virtual cursor is a difficult concept, since you can't see it.

So I don't think it's worth commenting to them. But people using AT don't navigate with the Tab key, they use arrows. Effectively skip, or go from heading to heading. It isn't just pressing the tab key.

I don't think it will have major consequences, and I don't think we should comment to them. But I wanted us to be clear that tabs aren't how people using AT navigate.

We would like to suggest you add implementation guidance to the effect that web pages should make it clear what the column order is using XYZ other web technology...

Xiaocheng to leave a comment and hopefully we can close as satisfied.

(Closed)