Re: Making Firefox and WebVisum accessible with VoiceOver
Re: Making Firefox and WebVisum accessible with VoiceOver
- Subject: Re: Making Firefox and WebVisum accessible with VoiceOver
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:03:10 -0400
- Thread-topic: Making Firefox and WebVisum accessible with VoiceOver
on 2008-08-25 10:02 AM, WebVisum at email@hidden wrote:
> Aaron Leventhal (the Firefox accessibility lead) also wants to make
> Firefox accessible on OS X so he wrote the following article:
> http://accessgarage.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/firefox-and-os-xs-voiceover-readi
> ng-the-magic-8-ball/
>
> The article is worth a read. I'd like to hear people's opinions on the
> options going forward.
I was only able to give the article a quick read for now.
With that caveat, I have to say that my first impression is that the Firefox
developers don't understand how the accessibility API should be implemented
in Mac applictions. Apple has provided very extensive implementation
documentation both for Carbon and for Cocoa applications. Once UI elements
that appear in a Firefox browser view, such as buttons and pop-up menus, are
made accessible, VoiceOver should just work. The same is true of screen
readers. I wrote a screen reader for Mac OS X myself, based strictly on
Apple accessibility calls, and I had it working like a charm in the course
of a few days. It's very similar in appearance to Apple's free screen
reader, Accessibility Inspector, but mine has greater functionality. Apple's
Accessibility Inspector code is available on Apple's developer site as
sample code. Of course, neither UI Browser nor Accessibility Inspector works
at all with Firefox.
Download a 30-day free trial version of PreFab UI Browser at
<http://prefabsoftware.com/uibrowser/>.
So, I would say that the Firefox team does not need to pay any attention to
implementation of a screenreader or ways to tap into VoiceOver. Instead,
they should concentrate solely on making Firefox accessible using Apple's
documentation.
I will be the first to admit that I don't have the slightest idea how
Firefox implements UI elements that appear in browser views. But, in theory,
it seems to me that it should be relatively straightforward to add
accessibility features, no matter how Firefox implements its browser view.
I stand ready to disabused of my opinions by people more knowledgeable than
I.
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
www.quecheesoftware.com
PreFab Software - www.prefabsoftware.com
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