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Bug 24642 - Should it be conforming to use role=presentation for tables that have border=1?
Summary: Should it be conforming to use role=presentation for tables that have border=1?
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC All
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: This bug has no owner yet - up for the taking
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html...
Whiteboard:
Keywords: a11y, aria
Depends on: 24647
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2014-02-13 01:05 UTC by Leif Halvard Silli
Modified: 2014-05-08 15:22 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Description Leif Halvard Silli 2014-02-13 01:05:10 UTC
See: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/index.html#attributes-1
And: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/tabular-data.html#attr-table-border

According to the first URL, the table@border attribute is an  ”Explicit indication that the table element is not being used for layout purposes”. (Second URL basically repeats the same message.)

As the spec stands, it does not make sense to combine border=1 with role=presentation since the two attributes send different messages to user agents regarding whether the table is a layout table or a data table. E.g. to visual users, the table could easily be perceived as a data table, while for AT users it would probably be perceived as a layout table.

Hence I ask the editors to consider whether it should be non-conforming to combine role=presentation and (conforming) border attribute values on the same table.
Comment 1 Leif Halvard Silli 2014-02-13 10:00:25 UTC
By applying the proposal in bug 24647, the semantic class between table@border and table@role=presentation, would be removed.
Comment 2 Robin Berjon 2014-02-13 11:08:27 UTC
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are
satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If
you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please
reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML
Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest
title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue
yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:

   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Rejected
Change Description: none
Rationale: As per bug 24591 @border ought to be made nonconforming anyway.
Comment 3 Leif Halvard Silli 2014-02-13 12:32:01 UTC
(In reply to Robin Berjon from comment #2)

>    http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html
> 
> Status: Rejected
> Change Description: none
> Rationale: As per bug 24591 @border ought to be made nonconforming anyway.

As per the my comments in bug 24591, including reference to a HTML WG decision, it does not make sense to keep border out of the list of permitted attributes.
Comment 4 Andrea Rendine 2014-02-13 13:20:06 UTC
(In reply to Robin Berjon from comment #2)
>As per bug 24591 @border ought to be made nonconforming anyway.
It wasn't.

[[To help users with this, user agents should clearly delineate cells in a table from each other, unless the user agent has classified the table as a (non-conforming) layout table.
The use of the non-conforming border attribute with a value other than 0...]]
Source: WHATWG HTML spec.

[[ If a table is to be used for layout it must be marked with the attribute role="presentation" for a user agent to properly represent the table to an assistive technology and to properly convey the intent of the author to tools that wish to extract tabular data from the document.
The border attribute may be specified on a table element to explicitly indicate that the table element is not being used for layout purposes. If specified, the attribute's value must either be the empty string or the value "1". The attribute is used by certain user agents as an indication that borders should be drawn around cells of the table.
The use of the border attribute with the non-conforming value 0...]]
Source: W3C HTML Spec. Just in case you forgot it.

Am I the only one who sees the difference? The first spec stated FROM THE BEGINNING that @border is non conforming. In the second one someone clearly did the mistake to exclude it, at some point, from the list of allowed attributes, but it's clearly a spec which considers @border conforming. Why? Because it works. I'm about to post a reply on bug 24647. See the difference between data table and non-data table by yourself and tell me that borders are not semantic in any way.
Comment 5 Robin Berjon 2014-02-28 16:21:08 UTC
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are
satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If
you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please
reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML
Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest
title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue
yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:

   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Rejected
Change Description: none
Rationale: Since @border is used a a heuristic to indicate that table, which is a non-presentational element, is indeed non-presentational, it is only natural that authors be able to override the non-presentational-non-presenational heuristic by indicating that it is, in fact, presentational if they need to.
Comment 6 Rich Schwerdtfeger 2014-05-08 15:22:27 UTC
this is conforming per May 8 HTML A11y Task force meeting.