Spatial navigation

In computing, spatial navigation is the ability to navigate between focusable elements, such as hyperlinks and form controls, within a structured document or user interface according to the spatial location.

This method is widely used in

computer games

.

In the past

CSS, this type of navigation is being used less often. Spatial navigation uses the arrow keys (with one or more modifier key

held) to navigate on the "2D plane" of the interface. For example, pressing the "up" arrow key will focus on the closest focusable element on the top (relative to the current element). In many cases, this could save many key presses.

This accessibility feature is available in a number of applications, e.g. Vivaldi web browser.^[1] For Vivaldi users, this allows a faster way to "jump" to different areas in long web pages or articles without manually scrolling and scanning with their eyes. Some examples, as noted above, include the Tab ↹ key to jump to the next input field, but also the ⇧ Shift key with arrow keys (↑, ↓, →, ←) to jump to various links and text headers.

Mozilla Firefox

builds with this feature. Eventually, this may build as a default part of Firefox.

Nightly builds of

Apple Safari and Google Chrome, among others) now^[2]

have support for spatial navigation.

In games such navigation is represented by (for example) camera-relative movement.

References

^ "Spatial Navigation". Vivaldi Browser Help. Vivaldi Technologies.
^ WebKit changeset 55543 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/55543

External links

[1] "Spatial Navigation". Vivaldi Browser Help. Vivaldi Technologies.

[2] WebKit changeset 55543 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/55543

[1]

[2]

See also

References

External links