Element: ariaActiveDescendantElement property

Baseline 2025

Newly available

Since ⁨April 2025⁩, this feature works across the latest devices and browser versions. This feature might not work in older devices or browsers.

The ariaActiveDescendantElement property of the ElementInternals interface represents the current active element when focus is on a composite widget, combobox, textbox, group, or application.

The aria-activedescendant topic contains additional information about how the attribute and property should be used.

Value

An subclass of HTMLElement that represents the active descendant, or null if there is no active descendant.

Description

The property is a flexible alternative to using the aria-activedescendant attribute. Unlike aria-activedescendant, the element assigned to this property does not have to have an id attribute.

The property reflects the element's aria-activedescendant attribute when it is defined, but only for reference id values that match valid in-scope elements. If the property is set, then the corresponding attribute is cleared. For more information about reflected element references and scope see Reflected element references in the Reflected attributes guide.