Avoid using the "enable sticky header" option in Drupal views
Context
In long or complex view tables, making the header row sticky can help keep the column title in user view as they go through the table. This reduces the need to scroll back up to remember what a column header was.
Drupal offers a setting in table views to enable sticky headers:
However, Drupal's version is a complex HTML, CSS, and JS-based solution. It also adds an extra table with only header cells, causing accessibility errors to flag.
Decision
When editing a view, add the Ashlar class "sticky-headers" in the CSS field to enable sticky headers. The theme will apply styles that make table headers sticky in the page.
If the "enable sticky headers" option is turned on under the format settings, uncheck that option.
Status
Consequences
For tables needing sticky headers, this approach should provide the same end result that the Drupal option does. Unlike the Drupal version, this uses only CSS and won't require extra HTML markup or JavaScript behavior. This should improve the speed and performance of pages using this solution, and prevent accessibility issues around table semantics.
On the admin side, we may want to address whether to hide the "enable sticky headers" option that comes with table view settings by default. Removing the option should prevent accidental enabling of it, but unsure if an admin theme override is required to do so.