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Indicating an active element, is there something more elegant than off-screen text?

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Nov 11, 2013 7:24PM

Greetings wise ones.

It is increasingly common that websites visually indicate the active
element in a set of elements.
This could be the current/active step in a process, visually
highlighting the currently active link in a list of links or similar.
<a href="http://semantic-ui.com/elements/step.html">See the semantic
UI definition of a setp</a>

This is usually done via a CSS class assigned to the active element.
Initially, a long time ago, I was hoping we had one brilliant and
simple solution for this, i.e. aria, but the <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/states_and_properties#aria-selected">aria-selected</a>
property only works with tabs, gridcells, options or rows, i.e. only
works within more complex widgets, it cannot be repurposed for simple
chores.
Is there currentlyany more elegant way than off-screen text to
programmatically or textually indicate the active element in a set of
elements?
Have there been any discussions on widening the scope of certain aria
roles or creating new ones to help solve this problem or other more
mundane problems (I could name a few)?
Just furiously curious.
Cheers
-Birkir
Accessibility SME | Deque Systems