aria-current state is used to indicate the current item in a set of elements within a component or a widget or a set of related elements. The aria-current state is specifically important to inform the screen reader user about the difference when an element within a set of related elements is visually styled to indicate it is the current item in the set.
aria-current state is an enumerated type. The values that are allowed by the spec are given below and explained in detailed later.
- aria-current=”page”
- aria-current=”step”
- aria-current=”location”
- aria-current=”date”
- aria-current=”time”
Any value other than the above specified value for aria-current should be treated as aria-current=”true” by assistive technologies. If the aria-current attribute is not provided or the value is an empty string then assistive technologies should treat it as aria-current=”false” which is a default value. Assistive technologies or user agents should not expose any state to the user when aria-current attribute is not specified or the value of aria-current is an empty string.
Authors should only mark one element in a set of elements as current with aria-current attribute. Authors should not use the aria-current attribute as a substitute for aria-selected in widgets where aria-selected has the same meaning. For example, in a tablist, aria-selected is used on a tab to indicate the currently-displayed tabpanel. On the other hand aria-selected and aria-current can be used to different elements in a same component. For example, In a calander aria-selected represents the date selected by the user where as aria-current indicates the current date.
Aria-current state used in roles
All the elements of base markup.
Values of aria-current State
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| Page | Represents the current page within a set of pages. |
| Step | Represents the current step within a process. |
| Location | Represents the current location within an environment or context. |
| Date | Represents the current date within a collection of dates. |
| Time | Represents the current time within a set of times. |
| True | Represents the current item within a set. |
| False Default | Does not represent the current item within a set. |