Reference Target for Cross-Root ARIA

[keithamus]

WebKittens

@annevk @cookiecrook

Title of the spec

Reference Target for Cross-Root ARIA

URL to the spec

https://github.com/WICG/aom/blob/gh-pages/reference-target-explainer.md

URL to the spec's repository

https://github.com/WICG/aom

Issue Tracker URL

No response

Explainer URL

No response

TAG Design Review URL

No response

Mozilla standards-positions issue URL

mozilla/standards-positions#1035

WebKit Bugzilla URL

No response

Radar URL

No response

Description

Reference Targets allow forwarding IDREFs to members of the ShadowDOM which will make it signficantly easier to create web components which rely on ARIA (which itself heavily relies on IDREFs).

The Web Components Community Group considers this a pivotol feature.

[annevk]

I think some relationships should be implicit as we don't want to regress on how label works today: WICG/aom#209.

Overall though I like the direction this is going in.

cc @rniwa

[Westbrook]

Now that w3c TAG has blessed phase 1 of this API and Chromium is moving into experimentations with it, when do you think can we expect to hear positioning from Webkit on this API?

[annevk]

People are generally excited about this solving a set of a11y problems with shadow roots, but generally we only take a position once there's more formal specification text to review. @LeaVerou's concern around non-ARIA attributes is also quite interesting. Was that addressed anywhere?

[woody-li]

Since WebKit/WebKit#39742 is merged, is it worth marking as support?

[annevk]

As per the README:

Note that positions on this repository do not reflect implementation status. We might like something we do not get around to implement for one reason or another. And we might dislike something we nevertheless have to implement.

[Westbrook]

I know that the actions and positions of other browser vendors do not have a direct impact of the same of any other, but in light of Mozilla recently taking a positive position of this API, I wonder if the WebKit team might see fit to revisiting this issue in order to possible share their own position. If there happened to be outstanding concerns, issues, or questions around this API, it would be great to be able to collect them an include them in live discussion at TPAC in a few weeks.

Thanks in advance for you time and consideration on this powerful accessibility primitive. 🙇🏼‍♂️

Adding these spec PRs for extended reference in this conversation:

• Add reference target whatwg/html#10995
• Add reference target to shadow root whatwg/dom#1353