Spoiler DW-tag

[magibrain]

Title:
Spoiler DW-tag

Area:
DW custom tags

Summary:
Add a tag to easily add spoilertext to a post.

Description:
I suggest a [spoiler][/spoiler] tag which would automatically generate spoilertext (often black text on a black background, so that a user can choose to highlight it to read it), with a hidden-from-screen-display but screen-reader-accessible (possibly using WebAIM's hidden content trick - http://webaim.org/techniques/css/invisiblecontent/ ) link to skip the spoilered content. The rough format I've been using in my posts is this (brackets flattened because preview didn't like < and > codes):

[a href="#skip_spoiler_1" style="width:1px; height:1px; position:absolute; left:-10000px;"]skip spoiler[/a][span style="color:#000; background-color:#000;"]SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS[/blockquote][a name="skip_spoiler_1" /]

It seems that the following code:

[spoiler]SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS[/spoiler]

would be much cleaner, and guarantee accessibility for people using spoilertext who might not otherwise consider screenreaders.

As for drawbacks... I'm not sure how many people actually use spoilertext on a regular basis, I don't know if color choice would be controversial, I'm not entirely happy with the disparallel between functionality for sighted and screenreader-using folk (where people reading visually have to take action to see the spoilered content, but people using a screenreader have to take action to *avoid* being spoilered), the outputted HTML is still a little bloated, the trick to not display the skip link is a kludge (because screenreaders have erratic handling of both visibility:hidden and display:none), and I imagine it would get extremely ugly if used on a large patch of text. But it'd be cool to hear discussion on any/all points. :)

Poll #9002 Spoiler DW-tag

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 101

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
46 (45.5%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
22 (21.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
10 (9.9%)

(I have no opinion)
22 (21.8%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.0%)

Comments

[zeborah]

If the technical and accessibility issues can be surmounted, I would love and regularly use a spoiler/trigger pseudo-tag; as it is I have to open a file where I've stored a template for one that I got from a friend of a friend somewhere some while back...