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Thread: Flash and keyboard navigation
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From: Tom Gilder
Date: Tue, Oct 08 2002 5:23AM
Subject: Flash and keyboard navigation
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Hi, I've just been looking into the problems with embedded Flash
movies and keyboard navigation. For instance, if you go to
Macromedia's home page (http://www.macromedia.com) and try to tab
through the page, you immediately get "stuck" in the first movie.
I had this problem myself a few weeks ago, where there was a small
movie with a simple vector animation (and yes it had a text backup),
but it was catching the tab order and never letting go.
Someone suggested setting the param "wmode" to "transparent" would fix
it, which it did. For some reason this totally takes the movie out of
tabbing order, so if there were actually any links within the movie
they'd be inaccessible.
Luckily there aren't any in this case, but if I'm ever forced to use
Flash with links, buttons or inputs in the future I'm concerned that
it'll totally muck-up keyboard navigation.
Does anyone have a fix for this problem (preferably just through
setting an <object> param)?
All this talk of accessibility from MM needs to actually be backed up
with some action it seems to me. After all, what's the point in
letting screen readers read a page when you can't tab through it..?
Cheers
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Tom Gilder
http://tom.me.uk/
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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Tue, Oct 08 2002 7:35AM
Subject: Re: Flash and keyboard navigation
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On 10/8/02 8:13 AM, "Tom Gilder" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Does anyone have a fix for this problem (preferably just through
> setting an <object> param)?
This solution depends on JavaScript, but is an interim possibility.
http://www.sonokids.com/tabnew.html
> All this talk of accessibility from MM needs to actually be backed up
> with some action it seems to me. After all, what's the point in
> letting screen readers read a page when you can't tab through it..?
The tab-capturing issue in Flash is resolved for users with screen readers
that support Flash. Keyboard users that don't use a screen reader will have
the problem you describe. Older screen readers generally ignore Flash
content entirely.
AWK
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Andrew Kirkpatrick
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA 02134
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Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
617-300-4420 (direct voice/FAX)
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WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate,
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learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.
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From: Tom Gilder
Date: Tue, Oct 08 2002 8:19AM
Subject: Re: Flash and keyboard navigation
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On Tuesday, October 8, 2002, 3:26:53 PM, Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:
> > Does anyone have a fix for this problem (preferably just through
> > setting an <object> param)?
>
> This solution depends on JavaScript, but is an interim possibility.
> http://www.sonokids.com/tabnew.html
Oh well, that instantly voids it as a solution, but thanks anyway :/
Slightly nasty JS anyway, I could probably come up with a slightly
more elegant hack if I really wanted to.
Is there really no built-in way around this problem? It seems such a
basic, simple issue I'm just amazed MM haven't come up with a fix for
it. Anyone know if it's actually considered a bug by MM?
Cheers
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Tom Gilder
http://tom.me.uk/
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From: Steve Vosloo
Date: Wed, Oct 09 2002 12:21AM
Subject: RE: Flash and keyboard navigation
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MM's official answer was:
"You suggest a perfectly reasonable workaround for this near-term
solution: provide a skip-Flash link ("Skip over Flash movie"). A
slightly better technique that we would endorse is re-publishing the
Flash movie as version 6, and simply turning off accessibility support
for the whole movie (uncheck "Make Movie Accessible" in the
Accessibility panel while nothing is selected on the Stage). This makes
the screen reader ignore the Flash content entirely."
As a last thought ...
"We hope that our next version of Flash will make enough improvements
that everyone will be able to make their content accessible without
undue effort."
As far as I know there is no way around this other than these 2 options.
Steve
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