Re: [aapi] ARIAAttrModified?

Hi Joseph.

Great questions, some bits inline:

Joseph Scheuhammer wrote:
> David,
>
> Some pros and cons.
>
> Pro:  if aria does become ubiquitous in the sense that it is used for
> markup other than HTML, then it would be good to have a common way of
> detecting changes to aria attributes.  Thus, regardless of its use in
> SVG, XUL, or whatever, there is a standard way to react to changes to
> aria information.
>
> Con: it has taken a long time for user agents to support DOM mutation
> events.  I despair of a new event coming along anytime soon.  I guess
> it depends on the will to do it -- get enough people behind it and it
> will happen.

Well, in the case of FF, I'm sure we're willing to implement it if it
makes the web more accessible.

>
> Con: and a very specific one.  What about "native" widgets such as
> <input type=checkbox>?  They typically do not need aria information.
> Specifically, aria-checked isn't needed for checkbox inputs. 
> Furthermore, there is a reason not to include aria attributes in these
> cases because it leads to a synchronization issue.  That is, given
> <input type=checkbox checked="checked" aria-checked="true">, which of
> @checked vs. @aria-checked do you trust if they are not in agreement? 
> But, if aria-checked is left out there won't be an AriaAttrModified
> event when the checked state changes.  So:  how do you deal with
> native widget state changes?

Good catch. I'm not sure this is the best case though, since we already
have a working system for native markup. FF exposes and performs a click
action to/for AT.  I personally don't like aria-checked applied to a
native checkbox. Are people doing this now in the wild? (I'm asking
everyone)

>
> Miscellaneous:  maybe it doesn't need to be a mutation event.  There
> are other "high level" events in the DOM3 event model, such as
> UIEvent.  Since a lot of aria deals with the user interface, perhaps
> that branch of the event model should be extended.  That is, perhaps
> aria events are a fomr of UIEvents.  (This obviously needs more thought).
>

Interesting... please think more :)

cheers,
David

Received on Thursday, 5 March 2009 20:09:02 UTC