Re: issue-606 and aria-colindex, aria-rowindex

ARIA 1.0 states:

Since WAI-ARIA can augment an element in the host language, grids can reuse
> existing functionality of native table grids. When WAI-ARIA grid or
> gridcell roles overlay host language table elements they reuse the host
> language semantics for that table. For instance,WAI-ARIA does not specify
> general attributes for gridcell elements that span multiple rows or
> columns. When the author needs a gridcell to span multiple rows or columns,
> use the host language markup, such as the colspan and rowspan attributes in
> HTML.

http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#grid

I guess the question is whether information is conveyed to the
accessibility layer by rowspan and colspan attributes and whether that
information if provided is available to users via their AT.

--

Regards

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

On 15 October 2014 19:37, Alexander Surkov <surkov.alexander@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I wonder whether rowspan/colspan is more easy to use technique than
> colindex/rowindex one. That's closer to HTML markup and may require less
> computations.
> Thanks.
> Alexander.
>
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Daniel Trebbien <dtrebbien@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was wondering if there is an update on adding aria-colindex and
>> aria-rowindex attributes to the gridcell and row roles?
>>
>> aria-colindex and aria-rowindex were mentioned at a November 5, 2013
>> teleconference:
>> http://www.w3.org/2013/11/05-aapi-minutes.html#item03
>>
>> .. and then two weeks later at a November 19, 2013 teleconference:
>> http://www.w3.org/2013/11/19-aapi-minutes.html#item01
>>
>> The most recent discussion that I could find is from a May 5, 2014
>> teleconference:
>> http://www.w3.org/2014/05/05-aria-minutes.html#item03
>>
>> These would be very useful additions for creating large AJAX-backed
>> tables, where the data for rows are only downloaded by the web application
>> when the user views them.  For example, the application might know that
>> there are 150,000 total rows in a table, but the user is only viewing rows
>> 1000 through 1020, so the application only has to download the data for
>> those rows.
>>
>> Because aria-colindex and aria-rowindex are not supported, the only
>> solution is to try to use HTML rowspan and colspan attributes to make
>> the table model match the data model.  However, browsers that I have tested
>> (Chrome 37.0.2062.124, Firefox 32.0.3, Safari 7.1, and Internet Explorer
>> 11), do not expose implied rows to the accessibility layer:
>>
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-archive/2014Sep/0092.html
>> In order to have the browser expose the correct number of rows, it is
>> necessary to add an empty <tr> element for each of the implied rows (thus
>> making all rows explicit).
>>
>> Unfortunately, browsers start exhibiting performance issues with many
>> rows:
>> https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=418360
>>
>> If aria-colindex and aria-rowindex attributes were available, then these
>> performance issues could be avoided.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Daniel Trebbien
>>
>
>