RE: Question regarding role=directory, the usage and purpose is unclear

A point of clarification: There is a difference between an abbreviate list of key links (within one document or distributed across multiple documents), and the table of contents.  The DAISY Guide (called landmarks in EPUB 3) is a short list of key links. The guide could be considered a list of highlights or points of interest. This is not the same as a table of contents, which usually points to every major section in a publication.

In EPUB, the main table of contents is the toc element [1] of the  navigation document [2]. The abbreviated list of key links is the landmarks element [3] of the navigation document. The Guide element [4] has been deprecated.

[1] http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-contentdocs.html#sec-xhtml-nav-def-types-toc

[2] http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-contentdocs.html#sec-xhtml-nav

[3] http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-contentdocs.html#sec-xhtml-nav-def-types-landmarks

[4] http://www.idpf.org/epub/301/spec/epub-publications.html#sec-guide-elem


Tzviya Siegman
Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>

From: Steve Faulkner [mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2015 9:38 AM
To: Birkir Gunnarsson
Cc: Matthew King; Bryan Garaventa; W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: Re: Question regarding role=directory, the usage and purpose is unclear

role=directory - Related Concepts: DAISY Guide<http://www.daisy.org/z3986/2005/Z3986-2005.html#Guide>

http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#directory


--

Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>

On 17 April 2015 at 14:25, Birkir Gunnarsson <birkir.gunnarsson@deque.com<mailto:birkir.gunnarsson@deque.com>> wrote:
This role always struck me as being applicable to, maybe requested by,
 eBooks and documents, not to webpages.
I also fail to see the use case for this role in the context of a web
application (we already have role navigation, we have a banner role
(where site navigation structures usually reside), menus and trees.
In other words, we have lots of roles that can be used to designate
table of contents for a website .. not that such a thing really exists
in the web environment).



On 4/17/15, Matthew King <mattking@us.ibm.com<mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com>> wrote:
> I have never understood the rationale for having this role.
> I don't see much value in it.
> Interesting that there is no such thing as a directoryitem.
> Also interesting that it has name from contents ... pretty odd for a
> structure.
>
> Matt King
> IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
> I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
> IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement
> Phone: (503) 578-2329<tel:%28503%29%20578-2329>, Tie line: 731-7398
> mattking@us.ibm.com<mailto:mattking@us.ibm.com>
>
>
>
> From:   Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com<mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com>>
> To:     W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org<mailto:public-pfwg@w3.org>>,
> Date:   04/12/2015 06:07 PM
> Subject:        Question regarding role=directory, the usage and purpose
> is unclear
>
>
>
> Hi,
> I've been experimenting with TOC formats, and built out a somewhat complex
> one at
> http://whatsock.com/training

>
> Actually I wrote a script to do this, it would be nuts to do it by hand.
> It uses a simulated button, named Table of Contents, which includes
> aria-expanded to convey the correct state. The script iterates through all
> heading tags in a linear order from top to bottom, maps the levels, then
> builds out standard UL elements with the correct nesting order for all
> subgroupings.
>
> I also have it set aria-label on each nested UL so that it conveys the
> parent association in the naming calculation, which I like the sound of,
> because as you arrow down the list using a screen reader with a virtual
> offscreen model like JAWS, it is clear in context which nesting level you
> are entering into or out of.
>
> So I was looking at the ARIA spec, remembering that there was a directory
> role that should be applicable here too, documented at
> http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#directory

> But it's not clear to me how this should fit into my table of contents
> markup.
>
> For example, it implies that this should be used on the list element,
> where it states:
>
> "Superclass Role: list"
>
> If I do this though, it destroys my list within the accessibility tree.
>
> If instead I put it on the surrounding container, it doesn't appear to do
> anything.
>
> So, does anybody know what role=directory is supposed to do and how it is
> supposed to be used?
>
> Thanks,
> Bryan
>
>
>
>
>