Re: PROPOSAL: Integrate ARIA attributes into the XHTML namespace

On Apr 25, 2008, at 21:45 , Shane McCarron wrote:

>  1. Eliminate the private "aria" namespace.
>  2. Incorporate the 'aria-*' attributes into the XHTML namespace.

Using aria-foo attributes in no namespace on elements in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml 
  namespace is what's being implemented.

>  3. Define the attributes in an XHTML M12N-conforming module so that
>     they can be easily incorporated into XHTML Family markup  
> languages.

So far the flagship application of Modularization--XHTML-MP--subsets  
XHTML in a way that isn't prescribed by Modularization. This leads me  
to believe that Modularization isn't working.

>  1. It costs *us* nothing (there is work for the PFWG, but it costs
>     the XHTML 2 Working Group nothing ;-).

It's telling that you only mention cost to WGs instead of mentioning  
cost to *implementors*.

>  2. It promotes the ARIA techniques in the same way that incorporating
>     Ruby or Xforms into the XHTML namespace promoted them - helping
>     ensure they are not viewed as second class technologies.

The aria-foo syntax has already a better uptake than either Ruby or  
XForms.

>  3. It basically eliminates the problems with CSS styling and access
>     to the attributes via JavaScript, including the ability to develop
>     style sheets and scripts that work portably regardless of whether
>     the enclosing document is treated as HTML or XHTML - for the vast
>     majority of use cases, anyway.

The aria-foo syntax eliminates said problems and is what's being  
implemented.

>  4. There will only be one "name" for all the ARIA attributes.

Indeed, we only need aria-foo, not aria:foo as well. This is already  
what's happening in practice.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/