accessability with reguards to java not necessarily linux only but may be useful

[Bob Dodd]

Hello Sean,

I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with Java at all (well not in
that respect). What you were asked to do is really just a misuse of the
text field metaphor within Java. Being able to hit "return" is a useful
shortcut, but it is not a substitute for an "evaluate" or a "go" button
alongside. It happens quite a lot of course, usually when people are
trying to provide a command-line interface inside the Java GUI, which
would be better provided as a command-line based Java application (that
way it would work with Speakup...) One way to fix the accessibility
issue for your assignment would be to put the "press the return key to
execute command" instruction into the ALT text attribute using the Java
accessibility layer. It's a "bodge" though, not a proper solution (for
one thing, you will hear that text every time the screen reader scans
the page).

Bob Dodd

Special Needs Computing Research Unit,
School of Computing,
University of Teesside,
Tees Valley TS1 3BA
United Kingdom



--- Sean McMahon <smcmahon at usgs.gov> wrote:
> Pleasse pass this along to some one who might have more use for it or
> direct me
> to someone who might have more use.  Yesterday I handed in a program
> which a gui
> to my instructor and informed him that although there were 6 buttons
> there were
> 8 calculatable functions he wanted and did not specify the
> implementation for.
> Inother words there were 2 missing buttons.  Sinse his guidelines
> were strict
> about the gui implementation,  I informed him of his mistake.  At
> this point I
> was embarrassed to discover that the functions I needed were to be
> implemented
> by pressing enter after typing information into the edit field.  No
> pressing
> enter does not click one of the gui's buttons it performs it's own
> function
> provide you've defined it in the program which is how this assignment
> is
> supposed to work.  This is a major problem because java defines the
> class as an
> edit field and does not require any additional properties for that
> edit field to
> say whether you can hit enter and invoke a function or not.  It does
> have an
> editable property fore fields which you can not edit .  I think those
> of us who
> program should get a hold of those who develop java and request the
> change in
> implementation so a screen reader can see whether the edit field is
> one which
> also acts like a button or just a plane old text field.  My question
> for any of
> you is how do we go about making this change and who do we inform?
> 
> Write to me privately if you'd rather not clog up this list.
> Sean  PS.  when I finnish the code I can send to anyone who wants it
> so you can
> see what I'm talking about.
> 
> 
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> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
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