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From: Carol Foster
Date: Tue, Jan 07 2003 8:49AM
Subject: form input field with Browse button (type="file")
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I recently ran across a form input field that uses type="file" to
automatically create a browse button to select a file to upload. (This
was in an LMS, so I can't sent a url for that example I'm afraid.) JAWS
4.2 completely choked on it for me - either skipped the Browse button
completely when not in forms mode. In forms mode, JAWS went to the
button and just said "Ding". I am definitely not a power JAWS user, so
I am very interested to know how others have fared if they have
encountered this sort of form field with a screen reader. If anyone has
an example to try out, that would also be appreciated.

Thanks!
Carol

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Carol Foster, Web Developer
Internet Publishing Group, Information Technology Services
University of Massachusetts, President's Office
phone: (413) 587-2130
fax: (413) 587-2148
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Jan 07 2003 10:51AM
Subject: Re: form input field with Browse button (type="file")
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On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, Carol Foster wrote:

> I recently ran across a form input field that uses type="file" to
> automatically create a browse button to select a file to upload.

The file input field is defined as allowing a user to include a file or
set of files. The Browse button is just part of one possible
implementation, though in practice, there is not much variation in the
implementations of this element at present.

> JAWS 4.2 completely choked on it - -

That's bad news, but it's useful to know it. I have been under the
impression that file input is fairly universally supported in current
browsers, though the quality of implementation varies from rather poor to
almost decent. But since there are serious problems in support, it is
important to provide alternatives to file input.

An author should consider specifying alternatives to file input. At the
simplest, consider a discussion forum that lets users submit their photos
and have them automatically made available to other users. If the forum
maintainer can afford the time needed to handle an occasional special case
every now and then, he should tell, on a page containing the form, that
users who find it impossible to submit their photo using the form can send
it by E-mail to such-and-such an address for manual processing.

Even if a browser has file input support, users can encounter serious
problems, even obstacles. File input is relatively rare, so users may not
know how it works. And browsers implement it in confusing ways, including
some browsers' clueless behavior of setting the default filter for file
selection so that the view is limited to HTML files. Users may think they
can't submit their photo just because they don't know that the filter can
be changed!

For a mostly technical review of how file input works (or fails to work),
with a little discussion of alternatives that could be provided,
see http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/file.html

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


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From: Carol Foster
Date: Tue, Jan 07 2003 11:48AM
Subject: Re: form input field with Browse button (type="file")
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Thanks for the helpful replies on this! A bit more info: I tried this out in
Internet Explorer 5.5/Win2000 without JAWS, but using just the keyboard.
Again I could tab to the Browse button, but "enter" had no effect. This
seemed odd, so I tried some other possibilities. I tried the space bar and
presto - I got the file access box! So, back to JAWS: the space bar works
there too (in forms mode). (I had just tried "enter" before, and got a
"ding". Still the "Browse" text is not read, so it's not great.
But maybe the input box to type in the file location is a reasonable
alternative.

Carol


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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Tue, Jan 07 2003 11:51AM
Subject: Re: form input field with Browse button (type="file")
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The "browse to file" control can be read with JAWS, but the user needs to
know how and needs to know that they are interacting with a control of this
type.

JAWS will read the first part of this two part control. If you move down
the page, the edit box part of the control is read and the next tab stop is
the browse button, for which nothing is spoken. If you tab backwards,
however, the browse button is read and the next tab stop is the edit field,
for which nothing is read.

_Far_ from ideal, but it is possible.

AWK

On 1/7/03 1:33 PM, "Carol Foster" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Thanks for the helpful replies on this! A bit more info: I tried this out in
> Internet Explorer 5.5/Win2000 without JAWS, but using just the keyboard.
> Again I could tab to the Browse button, but "enter" had no effect. This
> seemed odd, so I tried some other possibilities. I tried the space bar and
> presto - I got the file access box! So, back to JAWS: the space bar works
> there too (in forms mode). (I had just tried "enter" before, and got a
> "ding". Still the "Browse" text is not read, so it's not great.
> But maybe the input box to type in the file location is a reasonable
> alternative.
>
> Carol
>
>
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> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>

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