Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
- Subject: Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
- From: "Marshall F. Scott" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 13:57:28 -0600
Hi All,
I've watched this thread with with great interest. I am a blind person who
tried to use OS X and had no luck. Yes, the tab key moves the cursor, but
there is no speech feedback even in the Finder. Have I missed something?
It seems to me that without speech feedback it doesn't matter what moves the
cursor.
Marshall
--
Marshall F. Scott
University of Utah
CVRTI
95 South 2000 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84112-5000
Voice: (801) 587-9523
FAX: (801) 581-3128
Cellular: (801) 232-5316
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>
From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
>
To: Accessibility-Dev Mail <email@hidden>
>
Subject: Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS
X
>
Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2003, 3:31 AM
>
>
on 03-09-01 1:04 AM, Smith Kennedy at email@hidden wrote:
>
>
> However, Macintosh systems have traditionally only allowed tabbing to
>
> move the user between certain types of controls. I believe they are
>
> the text-related ones, such as text areas, text boxes, etc. Buttons,
>
> pop-up menus, checkboxes and radio buttons have always been basically
>
> inaccessible without a mouse. This seems to be true in normal apps as
>
> well as in some Web browsers, including Safari. Lately, there have
>
> been things that are supposed to allow "full keyboard access" to all
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> GUI controls, but I haven't found that it extends to all applications.
>
> Perhaps only Cocoa apps inherited that capability automagically? It is
>
> not clear to me. But if that was all that Apple was relying on, that
>
> would be incomplete.
>
>
You don't make it clear whether you have turned on Full Keyboard Access on a
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Mac and tried it out. From your comments about Safari, I gather that you
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have not. Under Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar," launch System Preferences, open the
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Keyboard preference pane, click the Full Keyboard Access tab, check the
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"Turn on full keyboard access" checkbox, and click the "Any control" radio
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button. Or ask the vendor to do it for you when they set up your computer.
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Then you will be able to tab among all controls on the screen, not just text
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boxes and lists, and use the arrow keys and the space bar to select
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individual elements like tabs and radio buttons and menu items and click on
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selected controls.
>
>
Certainly all Cocoa applications implement these accessibility features
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automatically, and most of Apple's applications these days are Cocoa
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applications (whether written in Objective-C or Java, or another language).
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But a little testing shows me that it works on the Finder, too, which is not
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a Cocoa application. I'm quite confident that all Carbon applications
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written using Apple's latest APIs are also fully accessible, because Apple's
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APIs do support accessibility. You can test other Apple applications
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yourself easily on your own computer.
>
>
I'm surprised you single out Safari as not being accessible by keyboard,
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when in fact it is. It is a Cocoa application and the Cocoa APIs supply this
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capability automatically. I did notice with a quick look just now that the
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Reload and Add Bookmark buttons at the top of a Safari browser window are
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apparently not keyboard accessible even when enabled, which is a glitch that
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Apple should fix. However, both of those commands are also menu items with
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keyboard equivalents, and in addition the entire Safari menu bar and all
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menu items in Safari are accessible by keyboard, so the functionality is
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keyboard accessible. A couple of tests showed me that editable fields on a
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Web page, such as the Google search box, are also keyboard accessible.
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>
There are a great many additional accessibility features available in the
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Universal Access preference pane in System Preferences, and you can enable
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additional speech control capabilities in the Speech preference pane. You
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can even write your own AppleScripts and install them as Speakable Items.
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>
For more information, open Mac Help from the Help menu in the Finder. The
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Help menu is the best place to go first when you want to find information
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like this. Type a good search term, such as "accessibility," into the search
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field and press Return. You'll receive a few dozen references to Apple Help
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topics that would have answered your questions.
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>
One of the topics, for example, responds to a user's inquiry when "Full
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Keyboard Access doesn't work with an application." It explains that, if you
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encounter a third-party application that is not keyboard accessible, you
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should be sure to get the latest, Mac OS X-capable version of it from its
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developer.
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>
To me, this suggests that some third-party applications that will run on Mac
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OS X might not be fully keyboard accessible due to the developer's failure
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to take advantage of up-to-date Mac OS X features and APIs. Are your friends
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suggesting that there are no third-party applications that will run on
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Windows XP but that fail to take full advantage of Windows accessibility
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features? -- I doubt it. I'm sure Microsoft will tell you, as will Apple,
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that they do everything they can to make accessibility technology available
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to third-party developers, but that it is the third-party developers who are
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responsible for making sure it works in their own applications. In
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particular, older applications that were written before the accessibility
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APIs were available might require updating, although many older Mac
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applications gain the benefit of the new accessibility features
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automatically, without needing rewriting or recompiling. In the case of
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Apple's Mac OS X, all a third-party developer has to do is use the
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Apple-provided APIs for user controls.
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>
As a lawyer with a keen interest in accessibility issues, I am satisfied
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that Macintosh computers and Mac OS X are accessible within the requirements
>
of the law, and then some. As a third-party Mac OS X developer, I have
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written a utility to help other developers make sure their applications take
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full and proper advantage of the accessibility features available in Mac OS
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X 10.2 "Jaguar" and newer. Download the free thirty-day trial version of
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PreFab UI Browser at <http://www.prefab.com/uibrowser/> and read the
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documentation available via its Help menu for more information.
>
>
--
>
>
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
>
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
>
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
>
>
The AppleScript Sourcebook - http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
>
Vermont Recipes - http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes
>
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