Focus Manager Node Plugin: Accessible TabView
This example illustrates how to create an accessible tabview widget using the Focus Manager Node Plugin, Event's delegation support, and Node's support for the WAI-ARIA Roles and States.
Today's News
Top Stories
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Bone-chilling cold plods into Northeast US (AP)
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Tax package heads toward passage in Senate (AP)
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Sweden appeals UK granting bail for Julian Assange (AP)
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Berlusconi wins confidence vote in Italy barely (AP)
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Gunman opens fire during Fla. school board meeting (AP)
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Senate to push ahead on US-Russia nuclear treaty (AP)
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Army 'birther' pleads guilty to 1 of 2 charges (AP)
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French customs agents seize 354 fake Faberge eggs (AP)
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Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds end marriage (AP)
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AP Source: Lee agrees to $100M deal with Phils (AP)
World News
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Berlusconi narrowly survives Italy confidence vote (Reuters)
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Assange back in jail as Sweden appeals bail (Reuters)
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South Korea suspects North has more uranium sites (Reuters)
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Chavez's decree move enrages Venezuela opposition (Reuters)
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Hamas leader says group will never recognize Israel (Reuters)
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Odd, Yet So Addictive: The 10 Strangest Stories of 2010 (Time.com)
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French customs agents seize 354 fake Faberge eggs (AP)
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Sunni-backed politician to join Iraqi government (AP)
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Chavez seeks decree powers for 1 year (AP)
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Wade, Kadhafi call for United States of Africa with one army (AFP)
Entertainment News
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'King's Speech' leads Globes with 7 nominations (AP)
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'Jeopardy!' to pit humans against IBM machine (AP)
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Her OWN network: Oprah Winfrey is ready for cable (AP)
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Hugh Jackman injured in Oprah TV show stunt in Australia (omg!)
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Dexter's Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter Divorce (omg!)
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Justin Bieber Cleared of Charges in Laser Tag Assault Case (omg!)
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Rapper Ja Rule: 2-Year Prison Sentence a "Minor Setback" (omg!)
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Actress Jennifer Connelly Is Pregnant! (omg!)
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Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens Split (omg!)
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"Cuddly" Taylor and Jake "Obsessed" With One Another at B-Day (omg!)
Sports News
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AP Source: Lee agrees to $100M deal with Phils (AP)
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Newton, Fairley give Auburn All-American anchors (AP)
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Brett Favre-less Vikings dominated by Giants 21-3 (AP)
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Tevez back at City training (AFP)
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Jets assistant suspended, fined $25K for tripping (AP)
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Ravens beat Texans in overtime, 34-28 (AP)
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Streak ends; shoulder injury stops Brett Favre (AP)
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RBs, defensive players familiar with helmet knocks (AP)
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Free agent Overbay signs one-year deal with Pirates (Reuters)
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Bulls G Rose day-to-day with injuries (AP)
Technology News
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Sweden appeals UK granting bail for Julian Assange (AP)
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Yahoo preparing to lay off 600 to 700 workers (AP)
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Taiwan flora show features high-tech displays (AP)
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B&N Nook Color e-reader to get Android 2.2 update, Android Market access (Ben Patterson)
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Comcast’s ‘Xcalibur’ service embraces the Web, tentatively (Ben Patterson)
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Microsoft fixes bugs in Windows, Internet Explorer (Reuters)
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Real Racing 2 speeds towards iPhone (Macworld)
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Nokia Plans Multiple Upgrades for Symbian OS (NewsFactor)
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Hackers flood Twitter with Acai spam (AFP)
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The top 10 singles and albums on iTunes (AP)
Setting Up the HTML
The tabs in the tabview widget will be represented by a list of
<a> elements whose href attribute is set to
the id of an <div> element that contains its content.
Therefore, without JavaScript and CSS, the tabs function as in-page links.
<h3 id="tabview-heading">Today's News</h3> <div id="tabview-1" class="yui3-tabview-loading"> <ul> <li class="yui3-tab yui-tab-selected"><a href="#top-stories"><em>Top Stories</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#world-news"><em>World</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#entertainment-news"><em>Entertainment</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#sports-news"><em>Sports</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#technology-news"><em>Technology</em></a></li> </ul> <div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel yui-tabpanel-selected" id="top-stories"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="world-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="entertainment-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="sports-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="technology-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> </div> </div>
<h3 id="tabview-heading">Today's News</h3> <div id="tabview-1" class="yui3-tabview-loading"> <ul> <li class="yui3-tab yui-tab-selected"><a href="#top-stories"><em>Top Stories</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#world-news"><em>World</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#entertainment-news"><em>Entertainment</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#sports-news"><em>Sports</em></a></li> <li class="yui3-tab"><a href="#technology-news"><em>Technology</em></a></li> </ul> <div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel yui-tabpanel-selected" id="top-stories"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="world-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="entertainment-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="sports-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> <div class="yui3-tabpanel" id="technology-news"> <!-- Tab Panel Content Here --> </div> </div> </div>
For this example the content of each tab panel is created on the server using the YQL API to fetch the title and URL for news stories made available from the various Yahoo! News RSS feeds. Here's the PHP:
function getFeed($sFeed) { $params = array( "q" => ('select title,link from rss where url="http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/$sFeed"'), "format" => "json" ); $encoded_params = array(); foreach ($params as $k => $v) { $encoded_params[] = urlencode($k)."=".urlencode($v); } $url = "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?".implode("&", $encoded_params); $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); $rsp = curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch); if ($rsp !== false) { $rsp_obj = json_decode($rsp, true); $results = $rsp_obj["query"]["results"]["item"]; $list = ""; // HTML output $nResults = count($results); if ($nResults > 10) { $nResults = 9; } for ($i = 0; $i<= $nResults; $i++) { $result = $results[$i]; $list.= <<< END_OF_HTML <li> <a href="${result["link"]}"><q>${result["title"]}</q></a> </li> END_OF_HTML; } return ("<ul>" . $list . "</ul>"); } }
function getFeed($sFeed) { $params = array( "q" => ('select title,link from rss where url="http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/$sFeed"'), "format" => "json" ); $encoded_params = array(); foreach ($params as $k => $v) { $encoded_params[] = urlencode($k)."=".urlencode($v); } $url = "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?".implode("&", $encoded_params); $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); $rsp = curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch); if ($rsp !== false) { $rsp_obj = json_decode($rsp, true); $results = $rsp_obj["query"]["results"]["item"]; $list = ""; // HTML output $nResults = count($results); if ($nResults > 10) { $nResults = 9; } for ($i = 0; $i<= $nResults; $i++) { $result = $results[$i]; $list.= <<< END_OF_HTML <li> <a href="${result["link"]}"><q>${result["title"]}</q></a> </li> END_OF_HTML; } return ("<ul>" . $list . "</ul>"); } }
Progressive Enhancement
To account for the scenario where the user has CSS enabled in their browser but JavaScript is disabled, the CSS used to style the tabview will be loaded via JavaScript using the YUI instance's built-in Loader.
YUI({ base: "../../build/", modules: { "tabviewcss": { type: "css", fullpath: "assets/tabview.css" }, "tabviewjs": { type: "js", fullpath: "assets/tabview.js", requires: ["node-focusmanager", "tabviewcss"] } }, timeout: 10000 }).use("tabviewjs");
YUI({ base: "../../build/", modules: { "tabviewcss": { type: "css", fullpath: "assets/tabview.css" }, "tabviewjs": { type: "js", fullpath: "assets/tabview.js", requires: ["node-focusmanager", "tabviewcss"] } }, timeout: 10000 }).use("tabviewjs");
To prevent the user from seeing a flash unstyled content when JavaScript is enabled,
a style rule is created using YUI's yui3-js-enabled class name that will temporarily
hide the markup while the JavaScript and CSS are in the process of loading. For more on using the
yui3-js-enabled class name, see the
HIDING PROGRESSIVELY ENHANCED MARKUP section of the
YUI Widget landing page.
/* Hide the list while it is being transformed into a tabview. */ .yui3-js-enabled .yui3-tabview-loading { display: none; }
/* Hide the list while it is being transformed into a tabview. */ .yui3-js-enabled .yui3-tabview-loading { display: none; }
ARIA Support
Through the use of CSS and JavaScript the HTML for the tabview can be transformed into something that looks and behaves like a desktop tab control, but users of screen readers won't perceive it as an atomic widget, but rather simply as a set of HTML elements. However, through the application of the WAI-ARIA Roles and States, it is possible to improve the semantics of the markup such that users of screen readers perceive it as a tab control.
Keyboard Functionality
The keyboard functionality for the tabview widget will be provided by the
Focus Manager Node Plugin. The Focus Manager's
descendants
attribute is set to a value of ".yui3-tab>a", so that only one tab in the tabview
is in the browser's default tab flow. This allows users navigating via the
keyboard to use the tab key to quickly move into and out of the tabview. Once
the tabview has focus, the user can move focus among each tab using the left
and right arrows keys, as defined by the value of the
keys
attribute. Lastly, the
focusClass
attribute is used to apply a class of yui-tab-focus to the parent
<li> of each <a> when it is focused,
making it easy to style the tab's focused state in each of the
A-Grade browsers.
YUI().use("*", function (Y) { var tabView = Y.one("#tabview-1"), tabList = tabView.one("ul"), tabHeading = Y.one("#tabview-heading"), sInstructionalText = tabHeading.get("innerHTML"); selectedTabAnchor = tabView.one(".yui3-tab-selected>a"), bGeckoIEWin = ((Y.UA.gecko || Y.UA.ie) && navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Windows") > -1), panelMap = {}; tabView.addClass("yui3-tabview"); // Remove the "yui3-loading" class now that the necessary YUI dependencies are loaded and the // tabview has been skinned. tabView.removeClass("yui3-tabview-loading"); // Apply the ARIA roles, states and properties. // Add some instructional text to the heading that will be read by // the screen reader when the first tab in the tabview is focused. tabHeading.set("innerHTML", (sInstructionalText + " <em>Press the enter key to load the content of each tab.</em>")); tabList.setAttrs({ "aria-labelledby": "tabview-heading", role: "tablist" }); tabView.one("div").set("role", "presentation"); tabView.plug(Y.Plugin.NodeFocusManager, { descendants: ".yui3-tab>a", keys: { next: "down:39", // Right arrow previous: "down:37" }, // Left arrow focusClass: { className: "yui3-tab-focus", fn: function (node) { return node.get("parentNode"); } }, circular: true }); // If the list of tabs loses focus, set the activeDescendant // attribute to the currently selected tab. tabView.focusManager.after("focusedChange", function (event) { if (!event.newVal) { // The list of tabs has lost focus this.set("activeDescendant", selectedTabAnchor); } }); tabView.all(".yui3-tab>a").each(function (anchor) { var sHref = anchor.getAttribute("href", 2), sPanelID = sHref.substring(1, sHref.length), panel; // Apply the ARIA roles, states and properties to each tab anchor.set("role", "tab"); anchor.get("parentNode").set("role", "presentation"); // Remove the "href" attribute from the anchor element to // prevent JAWS and NVDA from reading the value of the "href" // attribute when the anchor is focused if (bGeckoIEWin) { anchor.removeAttribute("href"); } // Cache a reference to id of the tab's corresponding panel // element so that it can be made visible when the tab // is clicked. panelMap[anchor.get("id")] = sPanelID; // Apply the ARIA roles, states and properties to each panel panel = Y.one(("#" + sPanelID)); panel.setAttrs({ role: "tabpanel", "aria-labelledby": anchor.get("id") }); }); // Use the "delegate" custom event to listen for the "click" event // of each tab's <A> element. tabView.delegate("click", function (event) { var selectedPanel, sID = this.get("id"); // Deselect the currently selected tab and hide its // corresponding panel. if (selectedTabAnchor) { selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").removeClass("yui3-tab-selected"); Y.one(("#" + panelMap[selectedTabAnchor.get("id")])).removeClass("yui3-tabpanel-selected"); } selectedTabAnchor = this; selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").addClass("yui3-tab-selected"); selectedPanel = Y.one(("#" + panelMap[sID])); selectedPanel.addClass("yui3-tabpanel-selected"); creatingPaging(selectedPanel); // Prevent the browser from following the URL specified by the // anchor's "href" attribute when clicked. event.preventDefault(); }, ".yui3-tab>a"); // Since the anchor's "href" attribute has been removed, the // element will not fire the click event in Firefox when the // user presses the enter key. To fix this, dispatch the // "click" event to the anchor when the user presses the // enter key. if (bGeckoIEWin) { tabView.delegate("keydown", function (event) { if (event.charCode === 13) { this.simulate("click"); } }, ">ul>li>a"); } });
YUI().use("*", function (Y) { var tabView = Y.one("#tabview-1"), tabList = tabView.one("ul"), tabHeading = Y.one("#tabview-heading"), sInstructionalText = tabHeading.get("innerHTML"); selectedTabAnchor = tabView.one(".yui3-tab-selected>a"), bGeckoIEWin = ((Y.UA.gecko || Y.UA.ie) && navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Windows") > -1), panelMap = {}; tabView.addClass("yui3-tabview"); // Remove the "yui3-loading" class now that the necessary YUI dependencies are loaded and the // tabview has been skinned. tabView.removeClass("yui3-tabview-loading"); // Apply the ARIA roles, states and properties. // Add some instructional text to the heading that will be read by // the screen reader when the first tab in the tabview is focused. tabHeading.set("innerHTML", (sInstructionalText + " <em>Press the enter key to load the content of each tab.</em>")); tabList.setAttrs({ "aria-labelledby": "tabview-heading", role: "tablist" }); tabView.one("div").set("role", "presentation"); tabView.plug(Y.Plugin.NodeFocusManager, { descendants: ".yui3-tab>a", keys: { next: "down:39", // Right arrow previous: "down:37" }, // Left arrow focusClass: { className: "yui3-tab-focus", fn: function (node) { return node.get("parentNode"); } }, circular: true }); // If the list of tabs loses focus, set the activeDescendant // attribute to the currently selected tab. tabView.focusManager.after("focusedChange", function (event) { if (!event.newVal) { // The list of tabs has lost focus this.set("activeDescendant", selectedTabAnchor); } }); tabView.all(".yui3-tab>a").each(function (anchor) { var sHref = anchor.getAttribute("href", 2), sPanelID = sHref.substring(1, sHref.length), panel; // Apply the ARIA roles, states and properties to each tab anchor.set("role", "tab"); anchor.get("parentNode").set("role", "presentation"); // Remove the "href" attribute from the anchor element to // prevent JAWS and NVDA from reading the value of the "href" // attribute when the anchor is focused if (bGeckoIEWin) { anchor.removeAttribute("href"); } // Cache a reference to id of the tab's corresponding panel // element so that it can be made visible when the tab // is clicked. panelMap[anchor.get("id")] = sPanelID; // Apply the ARIA roles, states and properties to each panel panel = Y.one(("#" + sPanelID)); panel.setAttrs({ role: "tabpanel", "aria-labelledby": anchor.get("id") }); }); // Use the "delegate" custom event to listen for the "click" event // of each tab's <A> element. tabView.delegate("click", function (event) { var selectedPanel, sID = this.get("id"); // Deselect the currently selected tab and hide its // corresponding panel. if (selectedTabAnchor) { selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").removeClass("yui3-tab-selected"); Y.one(("#" + panelMap[selectedTabAnchor.get("id")])).removeClass("yui3-tabpanel-selected"); } selectedTabAnchor = this; selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").addClass("yui3-tab-selected"); selectedPanel = Y.one(("#" + panelMap[sID])); selectedPanel.addClass("yui3-tabpanel-selected"); creatingPaging(selectedPanel); // Prevent the browser from following the URL specified by the // anchor's "href" attribute when clicked. event.preventDefault(); }, ".yui3-tab>a"); // Since the anchor's "href" attribute has been removed, the // element will not fire the click event in Firefox when the // user presses the enter key. To fix this, dispatch the // "click" event to the anchor when the user presses the // enter key. if (bGeckoIEWin) { tabView.delegate("keydown", function (event) { if (event.charCode === 13) { this.simulate("click"); } }, ">ul>li>a"); } });
Accessibility Sugar
One of the challenges faced by users of screen readers is knowing when you've left the context of a given control. In the case of this tabview, if it were adjacent to another ARIA-enabled widget, the user would know they've left the tabview when the screen reader announces the role of the adjacent widget. However, if the tabview is sitting alongside standard HTML content, it would be really difficult for the user to know when they've left the context of the active panel.
One solution to this problem is to add some additional navigation as the last child of each tab panel that allows the user to move to the previous and next panel in the tabview. This will not only help alert users of screen readers that they've reached the end of the tab's panel, but allow all keyboard users to move more quickly to the next/previous panel. Without this additionally navigation, keyboard users would typically have to press shift+tab to navigate back up to the list of tabs to move to the next/previous tab.
var creatingPaging = function (panel) { var listitem, sHTML = ""; if (!panel.one(".paging")) { listitem = selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode"); if (listitem.previous()) { sHTML += '<button type="button" class="yui3-tabview-prevbtn">Previous Tab Panel</button>'; } if (listitem.next()) { sHTML += '<button type="button" class="yui3-tabview-nextbtn">Next Tab Panel</button>'; } panel.append('<div class="paging">' + sHTML + '</div>'); } }; creatingPaging(Y.one(".yui3-tabpanel-selected")); tabView.delegate("click", function (event) { var node = selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").previous().one("a"); tabView.focusManager.focus(node); node.simulate("click"); }, ".yui3-tabview-prevbtn"); tabView.delegate("click", function (event) { var node = selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").next().one("a"); tabView.focusManager.focus(node); node.simulate("click"); }, ".yui3-tabview-nextbtn");
var creatingPaging = function (panel) { var listitem, sHTML = ""; if (!panel.one(".paging")) { listitem = selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode"); if (listitem.previous()) { sHTML += '<button type="button" class="yui3-tabview-prevbtn">Previous Tab Panel</button>'; } if (listitem.next()) { sHTML += '<button type="button" class="yui3-tabview-nextbtn">Next Tab Panel</button>'; } panel.append('<div class="paging">' + sHTML + '</div>'); } }; creatingPaging(Y.one(".yui3-tabpanel-selected")); tabView.delegate("click", function (event) { var node = selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").previous().one("a"); tabView.focusManager.focus(node); node.simulate("click"); }, ".yui3-tabview-prevbtn"); tabView.delegate("click", function (event) { var node = selectedTabAnchor.get("parentNode").next().one("a"); tabView.focusManager.focus(node); node.simulate("click"); }, ".yui3-tabview-nextbtn");

