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Flash problem--and Contribute problem....

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From: Debbie Charles
Date: Nov 1, 2005 7:00AM

I have two problems that I wanted to see if anyone knows how to fix. We use
Macromedia products, and this is specific to them.

When you insert a Flash movie into a Dreamweaver page, publish it, and run
Bobby--or any other accessibility software on it, you get an error. It is
the Object tag error and the provide a link to accessible download. I have
found a way around it by using Javascript, but that is not a realistic
solution for faculty and staff who maintain pages and are not programmers.
Realistically, it's not a solution for me except that I found the code in
the Macromedia community and modified the file names to make it work!

Also, we use Contribute for many of our sites that have numerous content
providers. If you're not familiar, there are several templates made for the
site and the content providers choose the templates for their pages and can
only add content or whatever else the admin has allowed. In our case, no
one can edit the actual code except the admin. Problem is, users can upload
Flash movies, but the same lame code that is inserted into Dreamweaver is
inserted in Contribute too. So, none of those pages pass. It is not
realistic to have the admin change the code on a case by case basis as the
site has 50 or more contributors. We considered adding the javascript code
I found to the template, but the specific file has to be included, so that
is not an option either.

One of the programmers was reading about AJAX and other possibilities.
Thought I would poll the group and see if anyone knew of a solution. I have
been on the phone with Macromedia twice, and they promise that it is all
compliant, but then I've also seen the accessibility blog from them
outlining this exact problem. Go figure.....

thanks in advance for any help!!

Debbie

Debbie Charles
Educational Technology Services
436-B Brackett Hall
Clemson University
864.650.3995