Clarification needed: dragging movements and on screen keyboards about wcag HOT 3 OPEN

mac and windows do have on screen keyboard apps, which is why this keeps getting brought up as "well why not those?"

if the site/thing being assessed is only available on those platforms, then I could see an argument that in that case, the OS itself does provide the alternative to the dragging movement. so i can almost see that being used as an argument of why this would be ok (i seem to recall there were similar discussion threads about the ability, on iOS for instance, to define swipe type gestures that can be activated with a single tap using the OS's built-in accessibility features).

for general web content though, you would then still need to offer something for platforms where it's NOT possible to raise the OSK at will, like on iOS/Android for instance (where, to my knowledge, the OSK only appears contextually when in an actual text input), and indeed address the concern that OSKs on those platforms also don't include all keys.

from wcag.

I find two challenges

• Getting an on-screen keyboard to come up when there is not an input - it's generally not something you can just summon.
• On-screen keyboards that have the appropriate keys like up and down arrows are hard to find.
  The example with the keyboard is really meant when their is an input field that provides the same function.

from wcag.

mac and windows do have on screen keyboard apps, which is why this keeps getting brought up as "well why not those?"

but yes, one of the issues i think is often overlooked is that the on screen keyboard for a touch devices is not necessarily gong to have all the keys of a desktop device (tab / arrow keys) - but again this is me assuming some of the rational here, which i'd rather was in the doc than me having to remind/argue/debate with people about, instead.

from wcag.