At the CSSWG meeting that followed this, we resolved to rename reading-order-items to reading-flow. The demonstrations of how it works are still accurate, the property name changed.
Regarding the question about addressing the order using HTML instead of CSS, in addition to Rachel's point about responsive design, using tabindex doesn't work: A) Tabindex only addresses the focus order for keyboard use, it doesn't address the reading order for assistive technologies like screen readers. B) Tabindex is global so you'd have to add tabindex attributes with positive values in the correct order to every single focusable element in the entire document (there's little point in expanding the spec to allow positive tabindex values to be scoped to only a part of the document because again, it wouldn't alter the reading order).
At the CSSWG meeting that followed this, we resolved to rename reading-order-items to reading-flow. The demonstrations of how it works are still accurate, the property name changed.
Excellent, as ever.
This is really fantastic!!!
Regarding the question about addressing the order using HTML instead of CSS, in addition to Rachel's point about responsive design, using tabindex doesn't work:
A) Tabindex only addresses the focus order for keyboard use, it doesn't address the reading order for assistive technologies like screen readers.
B) Tabindex is global so you'd have to add tabindex attributes with positive values in the correct order to every single focusable element in the entire document (there's little point in expanding the spec to allow positive tabindex values to be scoped to only a part of the document because again, it wouldn't alter the reading order).
Thanks😊, from Vietnam