Accessibility

Hi Bob,

This is a good solution but it looks to me that it's not that feasibile when dealing with dynamic content in a Flash movie. Defining the tabbing order before hand assums that nothing in the movie is going to change but as we know, this is not the case with a lot of flash content which constantaly changes according to remote data feeds and user interaction for example. There is no way at the moment, as far as I can tell, to introduce the new objects into the tabbing cycle which makes this solution limited to static movies.

A possible solution will be some sort of a tabbing accessibility component which will introduce the new objects into the cycle in some way. It will manage the array of the tabindex and assign it to each object and new object that is introduced in the movie during runtime.

Such a component, like the accessibility component I have developed, will have to identify any new object in the movie which gets a bit tricky when dealing with the loadMovie, attachMovie and createEmptyMovieClip methods. Another solution would be to treat the objects which are assinged with a tabindex as containers and not the data itself. However, this solution will have an effect on the course of development and design of the movie, which is something we try to avoid when aiming to support accessibility. I think a better example than a page with single ABC movieclip would be something like the the RIA Macromedia is hailing or at least a dynamic site since these are the products developers are faced with makiing accessible, not a 26 movieclips demo movie.

HI Amir.

This example, introduces the concept but as the content gets more complex, so too do the strageies.

I will endeavor to build examples illustrating the variety of techniques I have come across.

The next step from here is, exactly as you described, to treat the Flash objects as containters, not content. As new content loads, the tabindex is already in place.

This presumes you know how many instances are on the stage at any time. If this is not the case, you need another method altogether. The most clever I have seen detects a screen reader. If one is present it generates a background movie clip that loads all of the same content in a single, very narrow column. The foreground elements are hidden (.silent = true). The end result is a screen that looks the same but reads perfectly.

Cheers,
Bob

wow :) that sounds niceee.... I think that container-oriented thinking will be a good approach in trying to ensure accessibility across dynamic content. My only concern is that it might deter some developers since it requires them to change the way they are used to do things. It is probably a better practice anyway but I think that supporting accessibility should be as seamless as possible and not be regarded as a time/cost consuming obligation. The innovative solution you descried sounds like some sort of "text only version" a la Flash where you get a linear content-only display. Might be a direction worth looking into.

What about nested movieclip objects? as we all know, nesting movieclip is a rudimentary concept in Flash development and is used extensively in projects. I've tried to tab through a nested movieclip:
clip1.tabIndex = 1;
clip1.ball.tabIndex = 2;
clip2.tabIndex = 3;
clip3.tabIndex = 4;

but the tabbing skipped the nested movieclip and affected only the three movieclips on the main root. Any way to resolve this? or is tabbing limited to the root level only?

Hi Amir,

Today's post might help. I dusted off some notes of mine from a while back about tab order.

I would need to see your original file to know exactly what the problem is. If you think to keep in mind:

1. Make sure every instance has been assigned instance name.

2. Make sure the tab index lists the last child in every parent - child relationship.

3. See case nine in today's post.

Let me know if you any more troubles.

Cheers,

Hi BoB,
today i noticed that the tabIndex will not work if I use _level for the flash movie.

For example: _level1.buttonName_btn.tabIndex=3;

Howdy,

Thanks for pointing this up. I haven't used this construction before. I tend to mark the absolute path from the root. Would you mind sending me the example?

thanks!

Cheers,
Bob

Hi Bob, you can get the example at http://ks.he.st/new/test_loadmov.zip

please note that in these files, i want the screen reader to read the content first and then follow by the header, this is because I want to test whether the tadIndex is working.

cheers

Howdy.

First of all, this particular movie is simple enough that the default reading order is fine. If you are building a more complex movie from here, it is sometimes helpful to reverse the reading order just to be sure you are actually controlling it. You can always change the order around later. Finding a missing instance that is disrupting the reading order is trickier.

In this case, I found that reversing the reading order did not work. So I changed the reading order. I specified the values in the movie clip that contains them. In the parent clip the buttons were given values 4 and 3 (remeber - I am reversing the order for testing purposes). Then in each of the child clips, I gave the title and content values of 1 and 2, respectively.

This read backwards as I expected. i will send you the revised files if you would like to post them yourself.

Cheers,
Bob

Hi Bob,
so you were saying that the tabIndex will work by using _level also? cool!

I would appreciate it if you can post the revised files.

thanks!

Actually no. It worked when I moved the tabindex into the child movies. The tab index did not seem to work when it remained in the parent movie using the _level paths.

Sorry!

Cheers,
Bob

Hi Bob,
if it doesn't work by using _level then I think it's kinda troublesome if we have 50 child movies (all the content pages) and one parent movie (the shell and the navigation buttons).

we will need to duplicate all the tabIndex scripts and put it in every child movies ?

Let say I have a flash movie consists of 2 levels. _level0 will have 3 buttons (A, B and C), when I click on any one of them, the respective content (contentA.swf, contentB.swf or contentC.swf) will load at _level1.

Since tabIndex will not work by using level so I'm wondering how should I organise my reading order?

I know that the below script that I put at the first frame of the parent movie(_level0) will not work properly.

_root.buttonA_btn.tabIndex=1;
_root.buttonB_btn.tabIndex=2;
_root.buttonC_btn.tabIndex=3;
_level1.header_txt.tabIndex=4;
_level1.content_txt.tabIndex=5;

is there any better way to solve the problem?

thanks!
ks

Hi Bob, thanks for the files and now I got it!

For those who want to see the revised files that Bob has sent me, you can get it from
http://ks.he.st/new/test_loadmov_br.zip

cheers
ks

Some comments related to tabIndex

You can also use the method .tabEnabled = true/false to 'silent' certain instances so they do not get called when the user tabs though the page (i.e. buttons, or clips that have invisible buttons attached).

May help someone sometime....

jk

Hi I cant able to download the file , i to face the problem while tabing through the parent and child movie clips

Hi.
I have found these posts to be really useful, and I have successfully been controlling the reading order for text fields for Window Eyes. When I add a combo Box component the reading order totally screws up. Tabbing through the movie follows the tabindex orders I have set up but the screen reader still reads the page from top to bottom ignoring the tabindexes.

I am wondering if there are any examples of setting a reading order in a movie which uses combo box components.

sarah

Hi can anyone help me with this?

I want to set tabs where i have 4 textboxes and 1 combo box in between.The tabindex property for the combo box does not work when i set the combo box's editable property to false.It gets the focus but does not move ahead onto the next textbox.i also dont want to change the editable property.
please help me with this