Re: Current spec text [Was: longdesc Issue 30 deserves to be resolved]

Laura Carlson, Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:47:32 -0600:

>>> Jonas [ ... ] hidden proposal

> "Elements that are not hidden should not link to or refer to elements
> that are hidden. However, ARIA attributes are exempted from this rule
> and are allowed to point to contents inside hidden elements"
> 
> Ian changed the editor's draft [2] [3] to say,
> 
> "It would be fine, however, to use the ARIA aria-describedby attribute
> to refer to descriptions that are themselves hidden. While hiding the
> descriptions implies that they are not useful alone, they could be
> written in such a way that they are useful in the specific context of
> being referenced from the images that they describe."

FWIW, this change can be seen as merely a consequence of ARIA itself. 
Because ARIA says that @hidden elements will be revealed if e.g. 
aria-describedby points to it. I guess it should not affect the 
@longdesc Change Proposal that ARIA operates this way.

Note that @aria-describedby makes no difference between hidden via 
@hidden and hidden via CSS display:none. And note that links, including 
@longdesc links, could - conformingly - be used to point to sections 
that have been hidden via CSS display:none. With the CSS :target 
selector, they could be revealed. Thus, it is still possible - despite 
this change - to use @longdesc in order to link to hidden sections, as 
long as the section has been hidden via CSS. This would also be an 
advantage of using @longdesc: @longdesc is interactive, whereas e.g. 
@aria-describedby is not.
-- 
Leif H Silli

Received on Tuesday, 24 January 2012 21:39:32 UTC