# ally.maintain.disabled

Disables any type of user interaction - including the ability to focus elements - essentially rendering elements inert.

# Description

This allows an application to make sure no element other than the exempted can be focused. This is method is superior to the idea of trapping focus by intercepting Tab, because it allows cycling through the browser UI and is not as prone to break for spatial focus navigation (i.e. any sort of focus navigation that does not use the Tab key). The major benefit of disabling focus of elements is that in turn we do not have to meddle with the user's interaction to actually change focus - we can leave that to the browser.

Elements are disabled by ally.element.disabled and can be identified in the DOM by the attribute [data-ally-disabled="true"] to align with styling of other :disabled elements.

ally.maintain.disabled observes DOM manipulations and automatically disables newly added elements when necessary.

The proposed inert attribute was removed from HTML5, because people thought inert subtrees by way of the <dialog> element would suffice. While we believe it doesn't, the inert attribute would only have solved half of the problem, because there's no way to avoid inheriting the inert state onto children. This behavior can be observed in the Google Chrome Inert Attribute Polyfill.

The WICG (Web Incubater Community Group) is working on reviving the inert attribute (including a polyfill).

The WHATWG is discussing a blockElements API that would cover the primary use-case of ally.maintain.disabled in a much better way.

# Usage

var handle = ally.maintain.disabled({
  context: '.within-filter-selector',
  filter: '.except-filter-selector',
});

handle.disengage();

# Arguments

Name	Type	Default	Description
context	`<selector>`	`documentElement`	The scope of the DOM in which to search. The first element of a collection is used.
filter	`<selector>`	`null`	The significant elements to exclude from being disabled.

# Returns

A <service> interface, providing the handle.disengage() method to stop the service.

# Examples