Re: Silverlight Demos was re: total accessibility of premier MS products?
- From: Varun Khosla <varun.lists@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:53:54 -0700
Hi
The problem with WPF seems to be severe - even you cannot read the
screen with jaws cursor, strange, as Jaws uses some kind of graphic
hooking to access that info. For this very reason, Jaws totaly relies
on UIA to provide information about controls.
me too working on a WPF project these days, and have to take my
colleagues' assistance even to check whether an item in a listview is
updated or not. Though I'm mainly working on business layer and
workflow and lucky to get away from designing part, still I have to
face it once in a while.
Thanks,
Varun
On 9/25/09, RicksPlace <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> They seem to be getting further and further away from making Silverlight
> accessible. Contact MS and complain is the only thing I can think of. Either
> that or contact one of the large blind groups. ACB or NFB and complain to
> see if they will put pressure on MS to continue making their apps
> accessible. Their new VS 2010 will use pretty much all WPF so it is either
> make sure MS and the Screen Reader companies make them accessible or you,
> and other programmers - myself included, may be out of luck in the near
> future.
> Rick USA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Manish Agrawal
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 8:03 AM
> Subject: Re: Silverlight Demos was re: total accessibility of premier MS
> products?
>
>
> Hello,
> (replying to a really old thread because I couldn't find any discussion
> after this).
> Some of the below may be just because I am new to silverlight and don't
> know enough about the accessibility features
> If you are aware of developer or user resources/documents/info that can
> help me make my silverlight app more accessible, please send them across.
>
> I am currently developing an application in Silverlight3 for a client and
> guess what, I am not able to use the very application I am developing.
> Most digging around reveals that silverlight3 has implemented very minimal
> accessibility through UIA (the AutomationPeer class), which is minimally
> documented, hard to use by a developer who wants to make his/her app
> accessible, and even if the developer does somehow implement all that, the
> accessibility brought out is partial and (MS claims) is not used by the
> popular screen readers like jaws or wineyes.
> A few examples:
> Plain blocks of text using a textblock control cannot be accessed by a
> screen reader (somewhere in the documentation said to enable tabstop on
> textblocks to make them accessible but I couldn't find a tabstop property on
> textblock).
>
> if I want to display a grid (table) on a page, jaws can only get the
> contents of a cell at a time in that grid when it is editable (provided the
> screen allows that), and then also, there is no way to get the header
> information read (because that is not editable).
>
> Basically, the only accessibility I could find with the silverlight app is
> with controls like text box and drop downs and that too for existing text in
> there. There is no keyboard echo. If I need to read what I have written, I
> need to tab out and back in.
> To make jaws read the label for a textbox, I need to define an extra
> attribute on the textbox in xaml markup (I couldn't make jaws speak the
> nearest textblock that contains the label).
>
> . In the next few days, I'll experiment with UI spy and the accessibility
> tools from MS and see if I can make any more headway.
>
>
>
> PS: I am on windows XP, IE8, and jaws 10. I'll also experiment with FF3
> going forward.
>
> Thanks,
> Manish
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 6:25 AM, <jaffar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi. I totally agree with Jamal's accessment of silverlight. My company
> asked me to check if silverlight could be used to develop a client's
> website. Having gone through it's access features which is almost
> non-existent, i persuaded my boss to abandon her scheme for the time being,
> which brings me to the question of how far are major companies such as
> microsoft willing to go to make their premier products truly accessible.
> Look at VS, for example. Accessible on the surface, but when it comes to
> other bells and whistle stuff such as the resource dditor of the c++ class
> browser, accessibility is so often pushed to the background. And the
> tollbox? Why is it so easy to use with cSharp and vb, but so useless when
> it comes to developing in traditional c++? Cheers!
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 5:24 AM
> Subject: Re: Silverlight Demos
>
>
>
> I found this article
> Accessibility Support Documentation for Silverlight
>
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/implementation-report/Silverlight_accessibility_support_statement
>
> It claims that Silverlight2 is mostly accessible with JAWS 9 if a JAWS
> ini
> file, about which I had never heard, is tinkered with. One also has
> to
> toggle off the virtual cursor.
>
> IronPython is being promoted as a particularly good language for
> Silverlight apps. I tried beginner samples, but could not get any to
> work
> with JAWS9, 10, or Window-Eyes 7.1 public beta. I was not willing to
> tinker with the ini file, figuring that at least the latest JAWS 10
> should
> recognize the Silverlight plug-in.
>
> I would love to find out otherwise, but my present conclusion is that
> Silverlight is essentially inaccessible to users of Windows screen
> readers. This is surprising and disappointing given that Microsoft
> has
> developed accessibility APIs that supposedly give us access to such
> rich
> media applications.
>
> Adobe AIR, by the way, is even worse. With Silverlight, I got the
> title
> of the sample in Internet Explorer. With Adobe AIR samples, I get no
> speech whatsoever.
> All of these trials have been after downloading the very latest
> plug-ins
> for both users and developers.
>
> Unfortunately, I think that blind consumer groups with the ability to
> influence Microsoft and Adobe have been lulled into a mistaken sense
> that
> new platforms would be designed with accessibility so as not to repeat
> the
> GUI accessibility problems of the 1990s.
> Major software publishers like them and others have mastered the art
> of
> doing just enough incrementally so that they appear to be acting on
> accessibility as an integral design principle, and that any current
> problems are just temporary snags, with full access around the
> corner.
> They know the right buzz phrases for government and consumer
> audiences.
> In truth, however, I fear we are going to lose significant ground
> again if
> we do not turn up the pressure!
>
> Jamal
>
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Manish
> http://iaccessible.blogspot.com
>
--
Varun
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