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RE: Accessibility Observations

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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Feb 27, 2002 12:02PM

Actually, let me clarify your clarifications.

1. Netscape: For the most part, Netscape 6 does tab well. The only
instance in which it does not (in my experience) is when the CSS
attribute "positioning: absolute" is used. The test page that I created
uses this CSS attribute. With other CSS attributes, Netscape 6 seems to
do very well. Hopefully they'll also support the "positioning: absolute"
keyboard access in future releases.

2. Opera: My test pages are fully keyboard-accessible. You just have to
be aware of the fact that Opera has different keyboard shortcuts. You
don't use the tab key to go from link to link in Opera. You use the "a"
key to go forward and the "q" key to go backward. So it is inaccurate to
talk about "tabbing" from link to link in Opera. The tab key in Opera is
used for navigating through forms rather than links.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu




-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Pawley [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 10:56 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: RE: Accessibility Observations


Paul,

I have a few caveats to what you said about Netscape and Opera.

1. Netscape: recent releases of Mozilla do support keyboard focus
*fully*, so presumably the next Netscape update will do so too. (Also,
did you not say in an earlier post that the tab key works for you with
Netscape 6.2 and Windows 2000?

2. Opera:
a. Your files work for Opera 5 but not for Opera 6.
b. Any page that includes a form fails to tab properly even with Opera
5: the form captures the keyboard focus and will not let go. c. Even
when it does work, the tabbing order is the order that appears on the
page (not the HTML order). You can see that in your second file. d. The
"tabindex" attribute has no effect in Opera 5.

Sorry to be picky, but I think we can help each other by pointing out
any gaps in each others' experience.

All the best,


At 26/02/02 20:12 -0700, you wrote:
>With CSS positioning, the tab order will be the same as the reading (or
>listening) order. I added some links to my test files so that you can
>see how the tab order changes when the div tags are rearranged. (Note:
>the links are dummy links that don't go anywhere.)
>
>The div tags work fine in Internet Explorer and Opera. In Netscape
>(both 4.x and 6.x) the particular kind of style that I used in these
>files causes the keyboard accessibility to fail. This is a Netscape bug

>which has been around for a while. The truth is that Netscape has never

>been very keyboard-friendly. Most people who depend upon keyboard use
>will be using a non-Netscape browser.
>
>Here are the links to the test files again:
>http://www.webaim.org/paul/css-linearization
> http://www.webaim.org/paul/css-linearization2
>
>Paul Bohman
>Technology Coordinator
>WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
>www.webaim.org
>Center for Persons with Disabilities
>www.cpd.usu.edu
>Utah State University
>www.usu.edu
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>
>Actually though looking jumbled, this might be another way to put in
>the navigation skip without having to code in the skippable links.
>These would be heard last, and then if the screen readers or browser
>readers read this order the same way.... if there are links in the
>content or side box areas would those be hit in the screen reader order

>with the tabbing key?
>
>I am curious and will tab work with layers and divisions. I just tested

>a page in IE and seems to work well however, same page in opera or even

>older nn may not work well on keyboard tabbing of links on pages with
>layers or z index.
>
>would having the links in the top most layer matter, or make the
>difference... or do these links have to be coded in another way?
>
>Seems they may get trapped in some deliveries.
>
>holly
>
>
>
>
>----
>To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
>visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

--
Philip Pawley
Liverpool, UK
http://www.alexanderworks.org/
--





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