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Re: web development tool for screen reader user?

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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: May 11, 2012 6:45AM

Birkir,

I think "fairly useless" is a little harsh. It is true that the design view (what I assume you are referring to as the main code editor) doesn't have its own Document Object Model and therefore when you navigate the page content that assistive technologies are not able to voice the type of structures that you encounter. As you point out, this information is available via the code view, the split view (where you can ctrl+tab to jump between the design and code areas and quickly determine element type and attribute information), and also in the properties panel (ctrl+F3 jumps you to the properties panel, ctrl+f3 brings you back).

In short, I'm not disagreeing entirely with you, you raise a valid point about an improvement that would be quite useful. However, I maintain that Dreamweaver is a very useful tool for web developers whether they are sighted and mouse-using, or blind, or only able to navigate via the keyboard.

AWK