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The Boolean "activate" Attribute

Current Wording

source: Access Module (14 April 2008 Working Draft)

3.1.1. activate = ( yes | no* )

The activate attribute indicates whether a target element should be activated or not once it obtains focus. The default value for this attribute is "no", indicating that the element will not be "activated". User agents may provide mechanisms for overriding the setting of the activate attribute. In such user agents, user-specified settings must take precendence [sic].

(Note: The use of an asterisk to indicate that no is the default value for activate is glossed in the actual draft with the ABBR element, in order to provide an equivalent for what otherwise could be classified as "ASCII art"; the use of asterisks to denote default values in the XHTML Modularization effort will all reflect this practice.)


Proposed Re-Wording

3.1.1. activate = ( yes | no* )

The activate attribute indicates whether a target element should be activated or not once it obtains focus. The default value for this attribute is "no", indicating that the element will not be "activated". User agents MUST provide mechanisms for overriding the author setting with user-specified settings in order to ensure that the act of moving content focus does not cause the user agent to take any further action (UAAG 1.0, Checkpoint 9.5).

User agents MUST provide keyboard mechanisms for "activating" any event associated with the focused element (UAAG 1.0, Checkpoint 1.2) and SHOULD make available the list of events associated with the element (UAAG 1.0, Checkpoint 9.6).


Pertitent UAAG 2.0 Principles & Success Criteria

Note: We must ensure that the following principles are adequately covered by the preceding proposed re-wording.


Note: Thanks to Jim Allan, Judy Brewer, Alan Cantor, Kelly Ford, Al Gilman, Gez Lemon, Jan Richards, and Jeanne Spellman for their direct input on this issue. Thanks, as well, to the entire User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Group for their attention to detail and invaluable contributions.


For UAWG Review: Access Element | Activate Attribute | Key Mapping/Binding