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SharePoint RTF editor accessibility

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From: Harper, Jennifer (DHS-EPIC)
Date: May 13, 2005 7:04PM

We have run across a problem in the pilot testing of a SharePoint
Services site. We were testing the discussion forum features and wanted
to make sure all employees would have an opportunity to post their
comments. We had an employee who uses JAWS test the page and the form
to post a new discussion thread was generally accessible and readable to
him, except for one field.



The form has 5 fields.

Field1 = drop down

Field2 = drop down

Field3 = text box

Filed4 = rich text field

Field5 = drop down


The drop down and text box fields seemed to work okay, but the RTF box
did not. The user said he could tell there was a "frame" (turns out not
to be an HTML frame, but some other type), but he could not get into the
box to type any text.



I used my EXTREMELY novice JAWS skills to listen to the form and I could
hear all the format buttons (font size and color, etc.). Then JAWS said
"RTF frame" and then continued through the form.



What this reminds me of is the difference in using your Yahoo! (or any
web mail) mail editor in IE which gives you format buttons, but then in
FireFox it doesn't. Maybe the RTF editor is ActiveX driven because I
get the same formatted-in-IE and unformatted-in-FireFox thing with this
form.



* Is this an issue with JAWS on the client machine? Our tester is
a full time JAWS user although I don't know for sure, I'm reasonably
confident he tried all the usual keystrokes.
* Anyone running SharePoint Services or Portal and checked the
accessibility of a discussion forum? Specifically the box to enter a
new post?
* Is there background on the accessibility of other browser-based
RTF editors that might be useful?



Any help, thoughts, suggestions are welcome!