Re: ACTION-1442: Draft spec text for aria-current and aria-currentfor

Hi Alex,

On 2014-11-26 10:28 AM, Alexander Surkov wrote:
> Can you think of use case where aria-activedescendant and aria-current 
> can be used for different elements of the same container?

The example I gave using site navigation applies: 
http://idrc.ocad.ca/index.php/research-and-development/ongoing-projects. 
The site index can be navigated using up/down arrow keys, moving focus 
from link to link, but the "you-are-here" link doesn't change.  Thus, 
"focus" is independent of "current" in the same container.

Now, while the site doesn't use actually aria-activedescendant for focus 
traversal, it could.  Which means aria-activedescendant and aria-current 
will be used for different elements in the same container.  Furthermore, 
in this example, aria-activedescendant would be a property of the 
container element that holds all of the links, and it would point to the 
link with focus.  In contrast, aria-current is property of one of the 
links, and not a property of the container:

<div id="left-col" aria-activedescendant="item-2">
...
   <ul>
     <li id="item-1">...</li>
     <li id="item-2"> ...</li>  <!-- This is the active descendant -->
    ...
     <li id="item-42" aria-current="true"> ... </li> <!-- You are here -->
...
</div>

> Otherwise why would not extend meaning of aria-activedescendant to fit 
> aria-current needs like the attribute pointing to currently active 
> element?

Because aria-activedescendant is about focus, whereas aria-current is 
about orientation.  I don't think aria-current "points" to anything 
since it's just a boolean value.  Léonie, Matt, does it?

>
> There's some confusion with naming. Dominic suggest to rename it to 
> aria-active what makes it sound close to aria-activedescendant.

That's an argument against naming it aria-active, since it could lead to 
author confusion as to which attribute to use where.

> Joanie suggests to map it to ATK active state which is currently used 
> for active windows only.

The ATK documents have been updated [1].  ATK_STATE_ACTIVE applies to 
more than windows.  Furthermore, ATK_STATE_ACTIVE is distinct from 
ATK_STATE_FOCUSED and ATK_STATE_SELECTED.

However, I see a problem.  The latest documentation also says 
"ATK_STATE_ACTIVE should not be used for objects which have 
ATK_STATE_FOCUSABLE or ATK_STATE_SELECTABLE".  But, that's ambiguous.  
It might be saying, "do not use ATK_STATE_ACTIVE for focus or selection 
states".  Or, it might mean "something that is focusable or selectable 
can never have ATK_STATE_ACTIVE", which is counter to the site index 
example above.  Joanie, can you clarify?

> IA2 has active state that can be used both for windows or current 
> element within controls (i.e used for aria-activedescendant case). 
> Obviously current and active in a container concepts are close and 
> have a subtle difference (if they have).
>

[1] https://developer.gnome.org/atk/unstable/atk-AtkState.html

-- 
;;;;joseph.

'Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"'
            - G. Bernhardt -

Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 18:29:07 UTC