W3C Last Call Working Draft for XHTML Role Attribute Module

W3C announced the release of a Last Call Working Draft for "XHTML Role
Attribute Module A Module to Support Role Classification of Elements."
The document was produced by the W3C XHTML 2 Working Group as part of
the HTML Activity. The XHTML Role Attribute defined in the Working
Draft specification allows the author to annotate XML Languages with
machine-extractable semantic information about the purpose of an
element. Use cases include accessibility, device adaptation, server-side
processing, and complex data description. This attribute can be
integrated into any markup language based upon XHTML Modularization.
This module is designed to be used to help extend the scope of
XHTML-family markup languages into new environments. It has been
developed in conjunction with the accessibility community and other
groups to make it easier to describe the semantic meaning of XHTML-family
document content. XHTML Role Attribute Module is not a stand-alone
document type. It is intended to be integrated into other host languages
such as XHTML. A conforming XHTML Role Attribute Module document is a
document that requires only the facilities described as mandatory in
this specification and the facilities described as mandatory in its host
language. Compact URIs: In order to allow for the scoped expression of
role values, the specification uses a superset of of QNames that allows
the contraction of all URIs . These Compact URIs are called CURIEs. XHTML
role attribute takes as its value one or more whitespace separated
CURIEs. Any non-qualified value MUST be interpreted in the XHTML namespace,
and MUST be taken from the list defined in this section. The attribute
describes the role(s) the current element plays in the context of the
document. This can be used, for example, by applications and assistive
technologies to determine the purpose of an element. This could allow a
user to make informed decisions on which actions may be taken on an
element and activate the selected action in a device independent way. It
could also be used as a mechanism for annotating portions of a document
in a domain specific way (e.g., a legal term taxonomy)... XHTML
Modularization 1.1 describes an abstract modularization of XHTML and
implementations of the abstraction using XML Document Type Definitions
(DTDs), and XML Schemas. This modularization provides a means for
subsetting and extending XHTML, a feature needed for extending XHTML's
reach onto emerging platforms. This specification is intended for use by
language designers as they construct new XHTML Family Markup Languages.
This specification does not define the semantics of elements and
attributes, only how those elements and attributes are assembled into
modules, and from those modules into markup languages. This second
version of this specification includes several minor updates to provide
clarifications and address errors found in the first version. It also
provides an implementation using XML Schemas.