multiple roles in a single document (was Re: Correctly mapping role="search")

aloha!

in the case of multiple search functions in a document instance, 
one would use the "lebelledby" ARIA property to distinguish 
"search form 1" from "search form 2" and so on, so that the user has 
a choice of available search interfaces:

 * "Search Mozilla Accessibility space:"
 * "Keyword Search for dev-accessibility mailing list archive"

etc.  -- the generic roles defined in the XHTML Role Module and 
reused in ARIA are just that -- generic -- it is up to the author
to correctly label each and every instance of a repeat role, just
as it is the author's responsibility to label each and every item
assigned a role (and, in ultra-good-practice, those that aren't)

as for repeated search functions with IDENTICAL purposes, the user 
should have the option of suppressing multiple instances of

role="search" labelledby="foo"

or having them each listed in a list of roles or a list of 
targetroles -- the important thing is labelling, and consistent 
labelling of identical items with identical labels (such as the 
case in which an identical search interface appears at the top 
of the document's order as well as at the end...

gregory.
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lex parsimoniae:
  * entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
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the law of succinctness:
  * entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
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Gregory J. Rosmaita, oedipus@hicom.net
         Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
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Received on Tuesday, 7 October 2008 16:16:29 UTC