WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Testing a flash movie

for

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Nov 14, 2006 3:40PM

Andrew,

Thats a interesting list of guidelines for testing the accessibility of
Flash content.

I have a question (or two) though.

> 1) Verify that the SWF is not using WMODE=transparent or WMODE=opaque.
> No WMODE setting, or WMODE=default is good. If the wrong WMODE setting
> is used, the content is inaccessible to SR users.

Does varying WMODE make *all* of the content of the Flash movie
invisible to the screen reader and if so why?
WMODE relates to making the background of Flash movies transparent
(enabling layering of SWFs),
so how does it turn off the access to the screen reader? Does it
interfere with the OSM?

On the Adobe site [1] it says:

> Using a WMODE value of 'opaque' or 'transparent' will prevent a Flash movie from playing in the topmost layer
and allow you to adjust the layering of the movie within other layers of
the HTML document.

Does the the fact that the Flash SWF will not be played in the top layer
affect the screen readers access to its content?
Can the screen reader only access content on a specific layer (I am
guessing the topmost DHTML layer by default)?
Can this be overridden by varying the z-index of the DHTML layer to
ensure that the layer containing the SWF is by default
on top, even if the settings WMODE=transparent or WMODE=opaque are used?

[1] http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_15523

Cheers

Josh

********************************************************************

NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
delete it and any attachments from your system.

NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.

Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
represent the views of NCBI


********************************************************************