[vip_students] Re: Dreamweever and jaws
- From: "Brian Dalton" <Brian.Dalton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 12:29:16 +0100
Hi Mairead.
Here is a review of Dreamweever that Loretta Conety kindly wrote for the
research section of the website of the Visually Impaired Computer Society.
www.vicsireland.org
Hope you find it useful.
Brian.
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 and JAWS 7.10
The following article is aimed at an Intermediate level and to highlight how
accessible Dreamweaver 8 is for the JAWS user. The program Macromedia
Dreamweaver 8 is a WYSIWYG HTML editor which generates HTML mark-up but
displays the document as if viewed with a Web browser. In addition to being an
HTML editor for designing, coding, and developing websites, web pages, and web
applications. You can use it as a hand-coding HTML editor or as a visual
editing environment. In general Dreamweaver is designed so that you don't need
special documentation to use it with a screen reader, but it is advisable to
configure it for best usage with JAWS by: Going to preferences (in the edit
menu) and in the accessibility section set 'off-screen rendering' to be
disabled. The Off-screen Rendering (Disable when using Screen Readers) option
offers improved screen reader performance in Dreamweaver 8. To prevent
flickering, Dreamweaver8 uses double buffering, which draws the screen in
memory before displaying it to the user. Screen readers work best with this
option disabled. Designers often overlook accessibility features such as ALT
text (Alternative text is a textual description of an image on a web page) when
creating websites, but Dreamweaver allows you to set preferences that prompt
you to provide accessibility information as you're building the page. By
activating options in the Preferences dialog box, you'll be prompted to
provideaccessibility-related information for form objects, frames, media,
images, and tables as each element is inserted in a page.
The design view is a design environment for visual page layout, and visual
editing. The JAWS user can use this view to paste in text (which can be
formatted by a style sheet) or to access the facilities from the menu bar,
Property Inspector (for editing the properties of an object). It is also the
view where the developer can preview their page in the Browser by pressing F12.
Code view is a hand-coding environment for writing and editing HTML, and it is
this view that is better for the JAWS user to work in, as when in design view
it is difficult to verify the position of the cursor or to place the focus in a
certain place.
The code view reads fine, but you need to know code. The design view also
reads fine, but you don't hear about what type of structural element you are
in. So, for example, if you are designing a page with H1 and H2 headings, as
you read the page in design view you won't hear when you are focused on a
heading - you only hear the text.These heading levels are important and assist
in directing the reader through a web page. You can however, use the keystroke
ctrl+f3 to open the properties panel and the first tab stop into that panel is
the element type. So you can get the information, but it takes an extra step.
Some people will jump back and forth between code and design view to accomplish
the same thing (use ctrl+' for this). Creating Pages in Dreamweaver:Features
in Dreamweaver can assist you in creating pages without writing a line of code.
When you have verified your position in code view by using your arrow keys
toggle back with the keystroke (Control ') into Design View and then by:
Selecting "Insert" from the Menu Bar for inserting various types of "objects,"
such as images, tables, Forms, Hyperlinks, E-Mail Links, Named Anchor, Media
etc. into a document. Each object is a piece of HTML code that enables you to
set various attributes as you insert it. When creating accessible tables and
forms, they can present some of the greatest web content challenges, but
Dreamweaver 8 simplifies the process. For example, as youinsert a data table
within Dreamweaver 8, you're immediately prompted to provide summary
information, a caption, and the position of headers in the table in addition to
the width, number of rows, columns, cell spacing/padding and thickness of
border.Incidentally, by adding identifying headers-an important but
often-overlooked design step-you make it significantly easier for a screen
reader to navigate tables.
Also when inserting images you only have to browse for the file and are then
prompted to type in a description or provide alternate text, which is a
textual description of an image on a web page. It is part of the HTML code and
does not appear on the page. It is important to provide alternate text for
your images so that people that use screen readers or text-only browsers can
receive the information provided by in image.
Creating accessible forms is also easy with Dreamweaver 8. When you select the
Form Objects option in the Preferences dialog box, you're prompted to providea
label for each form object, along with a short-cut key and the tab order
position. Specifying the label allows screen reader users to understandthe
purpose of each form object as they complete the form.
To Edit the Properties of Objects already inserted:
The Property inspector lets you view and change a variety of properties for the
selected object or text. Each kind of object has different properties.
This is when it was necessary for the JAWS user to toggle back into code mode
to verify the position so as to select the tag relating to the object. When
then back into Design View the keystroke Control F3 brought up the Property
Inspector which would allow the user to edit the properties.
Formatting your Page with CSS (cascading Style Sheets): Cascading style sheets
are a collection of rules that control the appearance of content on a web page.
They give flexibility and control over the exact appearance of your page, from
precise positioning of layout to specific fonts and styles. There are a few
methods of creating external style sheets in Dreamweaver and one of these was
by using the CSS Styles panel which allowed the user to create a new style
sheet or show the "All" or "Current" styles of the page. This could be
accessed by the keystroke Control, Alt and Tab or by activating it with the
JAWS cursor. This method could be confusing for the beginner and I used the
preferred technique of creating a Style Sheet by selecting File/New and using
the method of * as you type, Dreamweaver uses code hints to suggest options for
completing your entry. Press "Enter" when you see the code you want to let
Dreamweaver finish the typing for you, and not forgetting to include a
semicolon at the end of each line, after the property values. I found that
this was a much easier method for me but other JAWS users may prefer using a
different technique. I found then that it was a straight forward process for
the JAWS user to attach the style sheet by simply bringing up the Property
Inspector (Control F3) and selecting "Attach style sheet" from the Styles
pop-up combo box and then browsing for the CSS file. All the rules that were
created were then applied to the page. It was also possible to apply a class
style to any item on the page by just selecting the item and then by choosing
the class style from the Styles pop-up in the Property Inspector. I believe
Dreamweaver is quite accessible for the JAWS user. It is an immense support
for the developer to know code as it can confirm that the task you have
performed has actually been completed. Dreamweaver takes a lot of the hard
work out of coding but the developer must be aware and delete any unnecessary
code that may occur due to user error.
>>> maireadomahony@xxxxxxxxx 25/05/2007 12:19:12 >>>
Hi all
I am just wondering if anyone has ever used dreamweever with jaws. It
is a programme used to create Websites. I would appreciate it if
anyone has any basic notes on useing this programme with jaws as I
will be studdying it in college next year and will need to know if the
programme can be accessed useing jaws.
Regards Mairead O Mahony
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