Re: 'role' should be property

Mark Birbeck wrote:
> Hi Matthew,
> 
>>    Why can't be just standardize a way of using ARIA with HTML[1]?
> 
> The proposal you link to is very odd. :) The authors use @role in
> other situations, such as XHTML, but for some reason not in HTML.

   That's because the |role| attribute, as currently defined, requires
namespaces for all role names that aren't predefined. That can only be
done in XHTML.

[Snip!]
> I'm pretty certain that it is unnecessary and @role can easily be used
> in HTML and XHTML.

   Only for the small set of role names that are predefined, which means
you can kiss ARIA goodbye, and ARIA is the biggest selling point of
|role| in the first place. My point, though, was that you don't
necessarily need to tie ARIA to |role| or XHTML to begin with. And since
we have to support the use of |class| for existing microformats, it's
largely redundant.