[whatwg] A plea to Hixie to adopt <main>

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Eitan Adler <lists at eitanadler.com> wrote:

> On 15 November 2012 19:20, Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 1:45 AM, Tim Leverett <zzzzbov at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> >> Con: Adding a <main> element adds redundancy to the [role="main"]
> >> attribute.
> >> > I don't see why this is a con, if main is mapped to role=main in the
> >> browser it means that authors won't have to. Also adding
> >> aside/article/footer etc adds redundancy to the matching ARIA roles.
> >>
> >> Redundancy tends to be a source of error if they get out of sync. If one
> >> browser supports [role="main"] and another supports <main>, both would
> be
> >> needed to provide compatibility. Obviously this is a bit contrived, as
> >> browsers supporting <main> would likely also support [role="main"], but
> >> older versions would not support <main> . Going forward, this would mean
> >> that authors wanting to use <main> would have to use <main role="main">
> for
> >> backwards compatibility.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Actually, there's a good point: I would actually add this: if <main> or
> an
> > element with @role="main" exist on the page, there is no need to run the
> > Scooby-Doo algorithm and that element can just be chosen as the <main>
> > element.
>
> What if both exist but are different elements?
>

Good question. I'd likely choose <main> over @role=main.

Silvia.