Re: ARIA in HTML -- a new FAQ, and a proposal

Firefox will check for the role attribute in this order:
1. Unnamespaced role, but this kind is only checked if text/html or 
application/xhtml+xml (not checked in XUL or SVG)
2. http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml  (we still need to support this as it's 
officially part of the XHTML role attribute module, and I believe it is 
being used out there right now. Our current crop of examples uses that.)
3. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2

We go from least obscure to most obscure in our priority.

Also: 
* We allow spaces between role names, but at least for the moment only the 
first role name actually affects the mapping to accessibility API role 
methods. We do expose the entire string through different means though 
(the 'xml-roles' object attribute).
* If namespaces are supported by the host language, we allow the namespace 
prefix. This is because the PF still believes they may be needed, and it 
has not yet been proven otherwise. We can remove this capability in a 
second stage if someone can convince the group of that, but I'd like to 
address that after this (and not try to do do much at once).

- Aaron

Aaron Leventhal
IBM web accessibility architect
Voice: 781-583-4083
Tie line: 364-5945
http://www.mozilla.org/access




"Simon Pieters" <simonp@opera.com> 
09/21/2007 10:49 AM

To
"Anne van Kesteren" <annevk@opera.com>, Aaron M 
Leventhal/Cambridge/IBM@IBMUS, public-html@w3.org, wai-xtech@w3.org
cc

Subject
Re: ARIA in HTML -- a new FAQ, and a proposal






On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:25:38 +0200, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com> 
wrote:

> role attributes in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace on 
> elements not in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace are supported 
 
> and also take a space-separated list of roles.

Unless I'm mistaken, Dojo uses role attributes in the 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2 namespace on HTML elements. I would guess that 
 
Firefox supports that attribute. I am not aware of any content that uses 
the role attribute in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace and I 
don't think Firefox supports it.

Given this, I would suggest to allow the role attribute in the 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2 namespace on any element and that it takes 
precesense over role attributes in no namespace on elements in the 
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace, and forget about the role 
attribute in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace.

Otherwise I agree with the proposal. :-)

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software