Navigation: close hover-opened submenus on Escape key press - #78379

Closes #78355

What?

Move the Escape key handler in handleMenuKeydown outside of the menuOpenedBy.click conditional, and also call closeMenu( 'hover' ), so that hover-opened submenus are dismissed when the user presses Escape.

Why?

The Escape branch in handleMenuKeydown was gated on state.menuOpenedBy.click. When a submenu was opened via pointer hover, menuOpenedBy.hover was set but menuOpenedBy.click was not, so the Escape key did nothing.

This violates WCAG 1.4.13 — Content on Hover or Focus, which requires that content triggered by hover can be dismissed without moving the pointer or keyboard focus.

How?

In packages/block-library/src/navigation/view.js, the handleMenuKeydown action previously looked like:

if ( state.menuOpenedBy.click ) {
    if ( event.key === 'Escape' ) {
        actions.closeMenu( 'click' );
        actions.closeMenu( 'focus' );
        return;
    }
    // Tab focus trap ...
}

The Escape check is moved before the click gate and extended to also close the hover state:

if ( event.key === 'Escape' ) {
    actions.closeMenu( 'click' );
    actions.closeMenu( 'hover' );
    actions.closeMenu( 'focus' );
    return;
}
if ( state.menuOpenedBy.click ) {
    // Tab focus trap (unchanged) ...
}

The Tab focus-trap logic remains gated on menuOpenedBy.click since it only applies to the click-opened overlay menu.

Testing Instructions

1. Set up a Navigation block with at least one item that has a submenu (child links).
2. In the Navigation block settings, set Submenus → Show on hover.
3. Visit the front end of the site.
4. Hover over the parent navigation item — the submenu should open.
5. Press the Escape key — the submenu should close without moving the mouse.
6. Also verify that clicking to open the submenu (if available) and pressing Escape still closes it correctly.

Testing Instructions for Keyboard

1. Tab to the Navigation block on the front end.
2. Tab to a parent navigation link that has a submenu configured to open on hover.
3. Hover the mouse over the same item to trigger the hover-open while keyboard focus is on the link.
4. Press Escape — the submenu should close.
5. Verify keyboard focus remains on the trigger link (it should not move).
6. Tab through the navigation normally to confirm no regressions in keyboard behavior.

Screenshots or screencast

This fix affects hover-dismiss behavior on the front end. No editor UI change.

Use of AI Tools

This pull request was developed with assistance from Claude (Anthropic). Claude identified the root cause, implemented the fix, and verified it against the existing test suite. The change was reviewed before submission per the WordPress AI Guidelines.