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Thread: ActiveX accessibility
Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)
From: J. B-Vincent
Date: Thu, May 21 2009 4:00AM
Subject: ActiveX accessibility
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Good morning:
I've been scouring the Web for information on accessibility and ActiveX scripting. There are some references to use of iAccessibility, but even that is scanty. Any leads to more robust writeups would be much appreciated--thanks.
Jane Vincent, Center for Accessible Technology, Berkeley, CA
From: mark novak
Date: Thu, May 21 2009 10:35AM
Subject: Re: ActiveX accessibility
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hi Jane
Do you mean the "iAccessible" interface ? If so, I think you will find
lots of
info searching on Google ...
Mark
====
J. B-Vincent wrote:
> Good morning:
>
> I've been scouring the Web for information on accessibility and ActiveX scripting. There are some references to use of iAccessibility, but even that is scanty. Any leads to more robust writeups would be much appreciated--thanks.
>
> Jane Vincent, Center for Accessible Technology, Berkeley, CA
>
>
>
>
>
From: J. B-Vincent
Date: Thu, May 21 2009 10:40AM
Subject: Re: ActiveX accessibility
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Hi Mark:
I found a lot about iAccessible, but very little practical guidance about how to use it with ActiveX.
Thanks, and say hi to State Street for me,
Jane
--- On Thu, 5/21/09, mark novak < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
From: mark novak < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] ActiveX accessibility
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 9:32 AM
hi Jane
Do you mean the "iAccessible" interface ? If so, I think you will find
lots of
info searching on Google ...
Mark
====
J. B-Vincent wrote:
> Good morning:
>
> I've been scouring the Web for information on accessibility and ActiveX scripting. There are some references to use of iAccessibility, but even that is scanty. Any leads to more robust writeups would be much appreciated--thanks.
>
> Jane Vincent, Center for Accessible Technology, Berkeley, CA
>
>
>
>
>
From: Kelly Ford
Date: Sat, May 23 2009 5:45PM
Subject: Re: ActiveX accessibility
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Hey Jane,
Can you give any further details on exactly what you are trying to do here?
Just adding Microsoft Active Accessibility support to an ActiveX control
isn't likely to accomplish what you want, depending on what you are trying
to do. If screen readers are involved as an example, there will be other
steps you'll probably need to take
Are you building your own control for example that is going to display a
user interface for people to use?
BTW, hello from another former Madisonian.
If you can give a bit more of an idea I can probably get you the details you
need.
Kelly
From: J. B-Vincent
Date: Sat, May 23 2009 6:00PM
Subject: Re: ActiveX accessibility
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Thanks Kelly (and Mark); always good to see fellow former Trace Elements in the discussion groups:
I've run across a website with an ActiveX object (actually, it's the only thing on the page), and I'm trying to advise the client about how to make it 508 compliant. Since the object may be from an third-party author, the best option in this case might be to have a redundant accessible version, but I'm also trying to put together information on dealing with ActiveX in general. There don't seem to be public guidelines available the way there are for Java or other languages. Any/all info much appreciated.
Jane
--- On Sat, 5/23/09, Kelly Ford < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
From: Kelly Ford < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] ActiveX accessibility
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 4:43 PM
Hey Jane,
Can you give any further details on exactly what you are trying to do here?
Just adding Microsoft Active Accessibility support to an ActiveX control
isn't likely to accomplish what you want, depending on what you are trying
to do. If screen readers are involved as an example, there will be other
steps you'll probably need to take
Are you building your own control for example that is going to display a
user interface for people to use?
BTW, hello from another former Madisonian.
If you can give a bit more of an idea I can probably get you the details you
need.
Kelly
From: Jamie Smith
Date: Sun, May 24 2009 12:20PM
Subject: Re: ActiveX accessibility
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FYI, Microsoft Active Accessiblity isn't used with Macs.
On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Kelly Ford < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hey Jane,
>
> Can you give any further details on exactly what you are trying to do here?
> Just adding Microsoft Active Accessibility support to an ActiveX control
> isn't likely to accomplish what you want, depending on what you are trying
> to do. If screen readers are involved as an example, there will be other
> steps you'll probably need to take
>
> Are you building your own control for example that is going to display a
> user interface for people to use?
>
> BTW, hello from another former Madisonian.
>
> If you can give a bit more of an idea I can probably get you the details
> you
> need.
>
> Kelly
>
>
From: Kelly Ford
Date: Tue, May 26 2009 10:50AM
Subject: Re: ActiveX accessibility
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Jane,
Making ActiveX controls accessible is kind of a building block process that
requires you consider accessibility at each point in the process. Here's a
brief list of what needs to happen.
Before the list though, you should understand that ActiveX controls do not
work in all browsers and such. I'm ignoring that fact completely here but
depending on what you are working on, this could be a blocking issue to
start.
Add basic accessibility. ActiveX controls are really best thought of as
software applications that happen to run inside a browser. As such, the
ActiveX developer is responsible for adding accessibility to the control.
If your control happens to be based on standard win32 controls (not likely)
you'll get basic Microsoft Active Accessibility for free. If not, you need
to add accessibility support at the basic level to the control. This is
where Mark is saying you need to support IAccessible. Details for this are
at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms696165.aspx.
You could use other platform level accessibility solutions too likeUI
Automation or IAccessible2 in theory. I've personally not been involved in
efforts to make ActiveX controls accessible with these two technologies.
If the control in question doesn't support some platform level accessibility
infrastructure (and adding it isn't an option), there is likely nothing you
can do to make it accessible.
Supposing the control itself does support an accessibility infrastructure.
Now you have to look at whether that infrastructure is going to work for
your target audience. If you are talking about screen readers for example,
you need to understand how the screen reader gets information from the web
browser. For example, JAWS by default ignores information from ActiveX
controls. There is a configuration file called fsdomsrv.ini that can be
modified to adjust this behavior but again if the control doesn't expose
things via an accessibility API, modification of this file won't do any good
because there won't be any info for JAWS to pick up.
The Window-Eyes screen reader would likely pick this info up by default
based on my experience. But there's no guarantee that it would all work
correctly in terms of user interaction.
These are just two examples. Obviously the full range of accessibility
needs to be considered.
Flash is really a good example of where all the building blocks had to come
together to support accessibility. The Flash developers had to add
accessibility for a basic accessibility infrastructure. They used MSAA.
They obviously then had to ensure that people writing Flash content could
give the needed information (object names and such) to support this
infrastructure. Then they had to work with the AT industry to ensure that
this accessibility info was used.
My hunch is that this is not quite the do 1, 2, 3 and your ActiveX control
will be accessible level of detail you are wanting.
Personally if I was doing this kind of an effort and the ActiveX control in
question didn't already support accessibility, I'd be looking for a
different solution versus trying to add accessibility support.