combo-box does not announce selected list item

[christophe-g]

Description

Using a combo-box with a screen reader does not announce the selected item when moving up/down the list with keyboard.

This works for the simpler select component.

Expected outcome

Screen reader should announce the label of the selected (active) item when using the keyboard to navigate the list.

Minimal reproducible example

https://vaadin.com/docs/latest/components/combo-box#related-components

Steps to reproduce

• use a screen reader
• go to https://vaadin.com/docs/latest/components/combo-box#related-components
• focus on the first combo-box ('country')
• open the combo-box menu (down arrow)
• go up and down the list (down and up arrow)

Going up and down should announce the active item

Environment

Vaadin version(s): 24.6.0
OS: linux mint

Screen Reader: Orca - I do not have easy access to another SR for testing.

Browsers

No response

[web-padawan]

Thanks for the issue. I'm not sure we ever tested it with Orca (usually we only test on VoiceOver, NVDA and JAWS). But it's most probably related to the fact that the actual focus remains in the input field and the focusable elements are marked using aria-activedescendant attribute which has some issues at least in VoiceOver on Safari: #2748

[christophe-g]

related to the fact that the actual focus remains in the input field

That was also my take when looking at how the accessibility tree was behaving (in contrast with the select component). I'll try to use the select component instead for the time being.