Thread Subject: Re: note for focus cursor

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From: Sean Hayes
Date: Wed, Sep 12 2007 3:50 PM

Well your wording makes sense in the abstract now, but actually I think that if the platform doesn't provide it, the chances of an application doing it are slim to none on any major operating system or platform.

A few examples: In Java this would essentially require a re-write of AWT (on older platforms), or a shed-load of work in Swing. In Cocoa I'm not even sure this is possible, if it is it would certainly be hard. In the .NET frameworks and XAML, or the Win Cntrl library again you'd be looking at pretty much a ground up re-write. This is the sort of thing a major developer like an Adobe might take on, but a smaller vendor or a Government agency would never tackle it.

The situation is somewhat easier on the web where designers typically take much more responsibility for their interface look and feel (at the cost of cognitive overload), but even then - if form controls don't support it, it's a lot of work rolling your own,

That's all aside from the added cost of doing the AT interoperability again and getting it right.

So I really feel to have a chance of real world deployment this has to be scoped to platforms, and applications respecting the platform.

Thanks,

Sean Hayes
Incubation Lab
Accessibility Business Unit
Microsoft

Office: +44 118 909 5867,
Mobile: +44 7875 091385

From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Gregg Vanderheiden
Sent: 12 September 2007 22:03
To: 'TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee'
Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] note for focus cursor

Ah
Yes - you are right. I missed the second part.

Ok lets look at this approach.

"Platform software must support at least one mode that provides a highly visual indication of which user interface object currently has the keyboard focus. Application software that provides user interface objects must either use the focus mode provided by the platform software or provide such a mode directly"

This is sort of workable but the Application has to take more responsibility. The system focus may be invisible on their background for example.

How about


"Platform software and applications that have keyboard operable user interfaces must support at least one mode that provides a highly visual indication of which user interface object currently has the keyboard focus. Application may provide the highly visible indication directly or by utilizing the platform cursor where effective.




Gregg
-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.

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