There are a number of roles present in ARIA for which we have no corresponding role in ATK. The impact of this is that for any given accessible object on a web page, Orca needs to do additional checks to determine what that object really is. While it probably does not make sense to have an ATK role for every ARIA role, the addition of some roles (e.g. ATK_ROLE_LANDMARK) would reduce the amount of additional checks Orca needs to do.

And as long as we are adding roles, we should have a role for widgets showing ratings. We already have those in apps like Rhythmbox. And they show up in web apps -- why there is no role for that in ARIA, I dunno....

With no further ado, I propose the following:

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ATK_ROLE_DEFINITION

A definition of a term or concept.

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ATK_ROLE_ARTICLE

A section of a page that consists of a composition that forms an independent part of a document, page, or site. Examples: A blog entry, a news story, a forum post.

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ATK_ROLE_LANDMARK

A region of a web page intended as a navigational landmark. This is designed to allow Assistive Technologies to provide quick navigation among key regions within a document.

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ATK_ROLE_LOG

A text widget or container holding log content, such as chat history and error logs. In this role there is a relationship between the arrival of new items in the log and the reading order. The log contains a meaningful sequence and new information is added only to the end of the log, not at arbitrary points.

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ATK_ROLE_MARQUEE

A container where non-essential information changes frequently. Common usages of marquee include stock tickers and ad banners. The primary difference between a marquee and a log is that logs usually have a meaningful order or sequence of important content changes.

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ATK_ROLE_MATH

A text widget or container that holds a mathematical expression.

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ATK_ROLE_RATING

A widget whose purpose is to display a rating, such as the number of stars associated with a song in a media player. Objects of this role should also implement AtkValue.

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ATK_ROLE_TIMER

An object containing a numerical counter which indicates an amount of elapsed time from a start point, or the time remaining until an end point.