<html>
<head>
<base href="https://bugs.webkit.org/" />
</head>
<body>
<p>
<div>
<b><a class="bz_bug_link
bz_status_RESOLVED bz_closed"
title="RESOLVED WONTFIX - AX: accessibles for focusable/interactive <tbody> elements or elements with ARIA role='rowgroup'"
href="https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146239#c3">Comment # 3</a>
on <a class="bz_bug_link
bz_status_RESOLVED bz_closed"
title="RESOLVED WONTFIX - AX: accessibles for focusable/interactive <tbody> elements or elements with ARIA role='rowgroup'"
href="https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146239">bug 146239</a>
from <span class="vcard"><a class="email" href="mailto:clown@alum.mit.edu" title="Joseph Scheuhammer <clown@alum.mit.edu>"> <span class="fn">Joseph Scheuhammer</span></a>
</span></b>
<pre>(In reply to <a href="show_bug.cgi?id=146239#c2">comment #2</a>)
<span class="quote">> rowgroups should not be focusable. We added this to ARIA purely so that we
> could make the algorithm for presentational inheritance work. See
> #presentation:
>
> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/complete#presentation">http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/complete#presentation</a>
> "Likewise, although an HTML table element does not have an implicit native
> semantic role corresponding directly to a WAI-ARIA role, the implicit native
> semantics of its thead/tbody/tfoot/tr/th/td descendants will also be
> removed, because the HTML specification indicates that these are required
> structural descendants of the table element."</span >
The specification also says that rowgroup is to be used only in the context of a grid:
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/complete#rowgroup">http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/complete#rowgroup</a>
"Authors MUST ensure elements with role rowgroup are contained in, or owned by, an element with the role grid."
An element with role="grid" is the opposite of an element with role="presentation". If authors follow this aspect of the spec, rowgroups should only appear in an interactive context, and never in a presentational one.
<span class="quote">>
> The role mapping for "rowgroup" was explicitly defined as "no mapping" but
> unfortunately Alex didn't get the memo and added it to Firefox.
> </span >
I've discussed this with Alex. His is a considered approach. And, the other attendees of the AAPI meetings have moved away from the "not mapped" position. All platforms, except AXAPI, now define mappings for rowgroup:
<a href="http://w3c.github.io/aria/core-aam/core-aam.html#role-map-rowgroup">http://w3c.github.io/aria/core-aam/core-aam.html#role-map-rowgroup</a>
The rationale is that if an element is focusable and can emit AAPI events, then it must have some representation in the accessibility tree. Put another way, if the non-AT user can interact with the element, so can the AT user. The price, exposing an accessible, doesn't seem that steep.
<span class="quote">> ARIA 1.1 should be updated to make it clear that making a rowgroup focusable
> is an authoring error.</span >
That is another way to resolve the situation. If that's what the group decides then ARIA 1.1 should go on to say that if an author desires to make a rowgroup focusable/clickable, they should not use the rowgroup role, but some other role.
Also, these recommendations would apply to the <tbody>, <thead>, and <tfoot> elements. That is, if authors should not make rowgroup focusable, then likewise authors should not make <tbody>, <thead>, nor <tfoot> focusable.</pre>
</div>
</p>
<hr>
<span>You are receiving this mail because:</span>
<ul>
<li>You are the assignee for the bug.</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>