The search field and Preferences button should be reachable by keyboard when tabbing through the New Tab. See original version of New Tab for reference.

Hey Ricky, I think we discussed this a week or so back. Can you confirm that this is only going to be the case in Nightly as there is an experiment running to shift searches in the box up into the awesome bar? In other words, this is a known regression, but shouldn't affect Release?

(In reply to Gavin Suntop :gvn from comment #1)

Hey Ricky, I think we discussed this a week or so back. Can you confirm that this is only going to be the case in Nightly as there is an experiment running to shift searches in the box up into the awesome bar? In other words, this is a known regression, but shouldn't affect Release?

That's correct. This only affects Nightly since the search hand-off is Nightly-only until experiments are run.

Jess, should we wontfix this since it's just an experiment in Nightly and not a DS regression?

The caveat is: "until experiments are run". If the experiments are successful, then this behavior will ride the trains to Release.

I recommend we put this as a P3 into our backlog, and have it depend on search hand-off. Then if/when that bug gets movement, we'll know to pick this one back up. If someone has a better plan, please holler the recommendation here and we'll reassess.

Thanks!

Sounds good! Unassigning myself for now so we can triage later.

Hey folks, is this okay to be worked on yet? It's the last non-keyboard-accessible element on Newtab so it would be cool to get it done :)

Yes, feel free! Let me know if you have any Q's.

(In reply to Gavin [:gvn] Suntop from comment #7)

Yes, feel free! Let me know if you have any Q's.

Hey Gavin, do you know if there was a reason the prefs button is rendered at the bottom of the html? This puts it right at the bottom of the tab order which is visually a little weird - you have to tab through the entire page before you can focus on the pref button, which is in the top corner.

I've moved it to the top of the render order in my PR, which makes it the second thing you tab to after the Search box. That feels right to me, but I wanted to double check that there wasn't some other reasoning for where it was. Thanks!

Good catch Emily!
And yes, making it second in the tab order after Search should be fine.

(In reply to Wolasi :wolasi from comment #10)

Good catch Emily!
And yes, making it second in the tab order after Search should be fine.

Awesome, thank you!

thanks Emily, Gavin & Wolasi! \o/

Yura, could you take a look at this PR and let me know if the tab behaviour is correct? Right now tab focuses the Search bar, and pressing Enter/Space triggers the cursor. Typing then moves focus up to the awesomebar. Ed and I weren't sure if this is correct, or if an Enter/Space press should move focus directly to the awesomebar.

Thanks!

https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/5257#

Kate - is this still valid now that https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/5257# is closed?

The preferences button is tabbable but searchbox isn't with search handoff enabled. Currently handoff is only active in nightly:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/c79c0d65a183d9d38676855f455a5c6a7f7dadd3/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#1304-1309

So deprioritizing until there's plans to turn on wider than nightly.