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Thread: Shockwave keyboard focus
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From: J.M.Gray
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 5:58AM
Subject: Shockwave keyboard focus
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Shockwave keyboard focus
I have a problem with embedded Shockwave objects in a web page.
In the past we've distributed self-assessment questions to students on CD-ROM, and have put a great deal of effort into making these fully accessible.  We've recently decided to attempt to put these on a website instead, and are falling down at the first accessibility hurdle - keyboard navigation.
My problem is this.  You open the html page in Internet Explorer with the shockwave object and the shockwave object has keyboard focus - all is fine.  You switch to a different application (using mouse or Alt-TAB) then back to the html page.  Now the browser window, not the html page, has focus and I can't seem to shift the focus back to the shockwave object.  The tab key is about the only thing that the shockwave is picking up, but not things like RETURN to activate a button.  All works fine again if you click on the shockwave object.  I'd really like to see it work like Flash, where you tab in, through, and out of the object easily.
I've tried putting onFocus javascript to force the focus from the html body onto the shockwave object and I've tried adding an accesskey="x" to the object. The focus doesn't seem to be getting to the html, so neither of these work.
The only "solution" I have at the moment is to do CTRL-I quickly twice as this opens and closes the Favourites panel and leaves the focus back in the shockwave object at the end of it.  Personally I think this is a bit flakey and don't really want to let end users have to do it.
Am I missing something obvious, or is this just "default functionality" with Shockwave?
Jenny
-----------------------------------
Jenny Gray
Open University
LTS Media (OUBS Team)
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Wed, Oct 20 2004 7:54AM
Subject: Re: Shockwave keyboard focus
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> In the past we've distributed self-assessment questions to students on
> CD-ROM, and have put a great deal of effort into making these fully
> accessible. We've recently decided to attempt to put these on a website
> instead, and are falling down at the first accessibility hurdle -
> keyboard navigation.
Don't expect smooth sailing after this hurdle either. You might want to
carefully consider your delivery mechanism. It is possible to use the
Director self-voicing features to make the content accessible to visually
impaired users after this challenge, but it is not a trivial undertaking.
> My problem is this. You open the html page in Internet Explorer with
> the shockwave object and the shockwave object has keyboard focus - all
> is fine. You switch to a different application (using mouse or Alt-TAB)
> then back to the html page. Now the browser window, not the html page,
> has focus and I can't seem to shift the focus back to the shockwave
> object. The tab key is about the only thing that the shockwave is
> picking up, but not things like RETURN to activate a button. All works
> fine again if you click on the shockwave object. I'd really like to see
> it work like Flash, where you tab in, through, and out of the object
> easily.
Can you post a link - I'm sure others would be interested to see. I'm not
entirely clear on what you are describing - the focus goes to the browser,
not the html but the shockwave asset is able to pick up the tab keystrokes?
Can you clarify?
> The only "solution" I have at the moment is to do CTRL-I quickly twice
> as this opens and closes the Favourites panel and leaves the focus back
> in the shockwave object at the end of it. Personally I think this is a
> bit flakey and don't really want to let end users have to do it.
Yeah, we might not want to advocate this as a universal standard!
AWK
--
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Project Manager, WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA 02134
617-300-4420 (direct voice/FAX)
617-300-3400 (main NCAM)
617-300-2489 (TTY)
From: J.M.Gray
Date: Thu, Oct 21 2004 2:07AM
Subject: Re: Shockwave keyboard focus
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RE: Shockwave keyboard focus
Andrew,
You can try looking at it in http://studentsacct.open.ac.uk/oubs/b825/index.htm.&;amp;nbsp; I think I've removed our password protection.  Follow the Unit 6 link, as this is the only one with any content at the moment.
We spent quite a bit of time on self-voicing - you're right it wasn't trivial, but we've had good feedback from users.  So far the online tests seem more successful than the keyboard focus!
You seem to have understood my problem correctly.  All works OK at first, but if you leave the browser window then return to it, you can TAB around but not RETURN to activate any of the buttons. (BTW for the drag and drop, TAB to a target and press the SPACE bar).
Jenny
-----------------------------------
Jenny Gray
LTS Media (OUBS Team)
Open University, UK