Re: hgroup and ARIA outline in ISSUE-129 [Was: SSUE-129: replace or modify the ARIA section of the HTML5 spec - chnage proposal and replacement spec text]

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 10:40 PM, Bruce Lawson <brucel@opera.com> wrote:
> The complexity is that the outlining algorithm and the "normal" browser view
> are different.
>
> <hgroup>
> <h1>Acme Widgets PLC</h1>
> <h2>The finest Widgets that wonga can buy</h2>
> </hgroup>
>
> has 2 headings in "normal" full page view - the h1 and the h2. It doesn't
> make sense for hgroup to also be a heading.
>
> The code above, however, has only one heading ("Acme Widgets") for the
> purposes of constructing an outline; the <h2> is removed from the document
> outline as the outlining algorithm requires. But is still makes no sense to
> me for the <hgroup> to have any ARIA/Accessibility API mapping. It does
> nothing in itself, it just tweaks the semantics of its contents in one
> specific circumstance - the "outline view".

Elsewhere in this thread, I've quoted the spec text that explicitly
says that "hgroup" represents a heading for a section and that the hX
elements inside an "hgroup" only represent subtitles, one of which
contributes the text for the heading for the section.

If you disagree about what the spec says (as opposed to what it
/should/ say), can you please quote the spec text that defines how the
semantics of "hgroup" somehow change when presented in "normal" view?

> (I have considerable misgivings about <hgroup> anyway; as I speak at events
> etc, everyone finds the concept hard to grasp. I wonder whether the presence
> of two or more headings h1 ... h6 within one single <header> isn't enough to
> make the outlining algorithm to magically ignore the lower-hierarchy Hx
> elements without needing another element to do it)

I too have qualms about HTML5's use of hX elements.

*But* HTML5 semantics should be reflected not misrepresented by
accessibility API mappings.

If the semantics are wrong in the first place, then let's fix them at source.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Received on Sunday, 28 November 2010 23:21:01 UTC