Re: Getting beyond the ping pong match (was RE: Cleaning House)

John Foliot - WATS.ca schrieb:
> Mark Birbeck wrote:
>> But secondly, I would say that using @class rather than the role
>> attribute to carry values that are about the structure of a document,
>> could appear to be an example of the 'not invented here' mindset. I'm
>> sure it's not, but I would urge people to consider @role for this
>> task, since:    
>>
>>   * @role was created specifically to allow authors to say what an
>>     element's purpose is; 
>>
>>   * it was further motivated by trying to provide an 'unpolluted'
>>      value space so that there would be no ambiguities;
>>
>>   * it is available as a standalone module that can be used in
>>     different mark-up languages;
>>
>>   * it has been added to Firefox already.
>>
> 
> !!! Thank you Mark!!!
> 
> I might also suggest that @role is endorsed and supported by the Mozilla
> Foundation, that the ARIA Suite (which is leaning on @role to achieve it's
> goals) is funded in part by the good folks at IBM, and emerging as
> significant in the accessibility of AJAX technologies, and it's built-in
> ability to scale out via RDF is exactly what the semantic proponents are
> suggesting we need.
> 
> New Question: given that @role *is* an important part of Accessible Rich
> Internet Applications (or at least emerging as such), if HTML 5 *does not*
> support @role, what then of this work, and of accessibility?  Or are we
> stepping backwards here too?

Since the role attribute has never been part of HTML, I don't see how 
leaving it out could be a retrograde step. I have no knowledge of those 
applications, but they could obviously continue to work as they do 
today. Furthermore they could start using the class attribute, if 
appropriate.

--Dao

Received on Monday, 7 May 2007 15:34:13 UTC