accessibleName and helpText for arbitrary groups of UI components.

[pixelzoom]

Related to phetsims/models-of-the-hydrogen-atom#67 and https://github.com/phetsims/scenery-phet/issues/876 ...

In MOTHA, we have a group of push buttons in a Panel (made to look like a non-modal Dialog). See AbsorptionEmissionDialog.

As part of phetsims/models-of-the-hydrogen-atom#67, there was a request to group these push buttons and give the group accessibleName and helpText.

While groups like RectangularRadioButtonGroup have support for this, there is no support for arbitrary groups.

Also note that the layout requirements of this dialog also complicates creating a group. The dialog's content is arranged using a GridBox. So the push buttons cannot be added to a common parent Node.

We should also discuss whether the group should behave as a group for focus. I'm guessing "yes", but we did not get that far in MOTHA.

[terracoda]

I think the request was more how to make this dialog accessible? Putting accessible names on the buttons is required, and grouping them and/or providing some help text before the buttons could reduce the repetition of common wording such as "wavelength."

[pixelzoom]

@terracoda Are you suggesting that this should be done in sim-specific way, and that we do not need a general solution?

The request for this specific dialog is tracked in phetsims/models-of-the-hydrogen-atom#67. This issue is for coming up with a general solution -- which my notes indicate was something we identified in the MOTHA 10/15/24 design meeting.

[terracoda]

I do think it would be good to have a way to create an group name and help text for an arbitrary group.

[jessegreenberg]

Adding to the list - it would also be nice to have a way to identify when a group has focus. There currently is not a great way to identify that in scenery.