Flash MX 2004 announced
Here's a link straight to the accessibility features.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/productinfo/newfeatures/#07
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personal mini-rant: it struck me as interesting in the last version of flash already that the entire issue of accessibility is reduced to a checkbox in a dialog...at least, that's how macromedia makes it appear. i'd think that this option should be enabled by default, and more effort should be placed on making novice developers more aware of the other things that need to be done to ensure a flash movie is accessible (not being a flash person myself, i can't comment on the specifics...but i seem to recall various behaviours that need to be associated with buttons etc). otherwise i can imagine some flash jockeys making a huge flash movie as they normally would, and then simply ticking that box and feeling all good about themselves ... "hey, it's accessible...i ticked that checkbox, didn't i ?"Patrick H. Lauke / splintered
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Come on redux feller- give MM their due, Flash wasn't accessible at all before MX. At least they're making an effort to address the issues 
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If they really wanted to address the issue then, in my opinion, they would abandon their binary format in favour of XML based graphics and animation - SVG and SMIL. Even if it were just SVG for the graphics and binary data for the animation, that would still give us a basic open DOM by which a flash movie could be made accessible to all, not just two specific screenreaders - because it could be transformed into plain text.
Sorry, maybe I'm too cynical or too idealistic, but I went to an accessibility conference sponsored by MM a few months back, and it was appaling self-congratulatory PR (apart from Julie Howell's bit, which was great). I cornered their European PR manager and asked her why Flash isn't committed to open data formats, and her response was basically, because we're running a business and proprietary format lock-in is part of that.
Fair enough, but this is not the response of a company who cares - it's the response of a company who's doing as little as they can get away with.
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| brothercake wrote: |
|
Sorry, maybe I'm too cynical or too idealistic, but I went to an accessibility conference sponsored by MM a few months back, and it was appaling self-congratulatory PR (apart from Julie Howell's bit, which was great). I cornered their European PR manager and asked her why Flash isn't committed to open data formats, and her response was basically, because we're running a business and proprietary format lock-in is part of that. Fair enough, but this is not the response of a company who cares - it's the response of a company who's doing as little as they can get away with. |
Then they can't really win can they? Before the v6 player was released people moaned that they did nothing and now they're moaning that they're doing too little.
Lets get a bit realistic. Software development sometimes moves at glacial speeds, but it does move. There are reasons for that- version control and stability. I'm sure you'd be upset if MM introduced a load of accessibility options that didn't work- look at the heat Microsoft get every time a new OS is released. IMO they're going about it in the right way- slow and steady wins the race.
MM aren't a company who specialise in accessibility but they produce a (number of) product(s) that has accessible obligations. I think your assessment that they're doing as little as possible is unfair and not true- their are a number of people both at Macromedia and amongst the influential Flash community that care deeply about accessibility and usability. My take on what has happened to Flash's accessibility since MX was released was- thanks for what you've done its a vast improvement, now here's how you can do more and here's how you can do it better.
I also don't think MM are alone in their self-congratulatory attitudes if the reports I've read on teh recent Watchfire Webinar are accurate.
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I just posted some stuff about this to Accessify.Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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| Kev wrote: |
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Then they can't really win can they? Before the v6 player was released people moaned that they did nothing and now they're moaning that they're doing too little. |
Well yeah, I do complain that they're doing to liitle - maybe not in absolute terms, but in terms of the fuss they're making about it. I bemoan their using accessibility as a sales feature when the accessibility features they provide are minimal. I think they make more pomp and circumstance than their product deserves.
| Kev wrote: |
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there are a number of people both at Macromedia and amongst the influential Flash community that care deeply about accessibility and usability. My take on what has happened to Flash's accessibility since MX was released was- thanks for what you've done its a vast improvement, now here's how you can do more and here's how you can do it better. |
I'm glad there are, and I have nuff respect for that. Maybe I put too much stock in what I got from my conversation with this PR manager, because from her I got a deeply cynical attitude and a feeling that they didn't really care at all.
It's that conversation that's fuelling my attitude - i'm not impressed because they could extend their format to provide an open DOM as the linchpin for full accessibility, via on-the-fly transforms into a different format. It doesn't have to be XML based for that (I understand the verbosity complaints surrounding XML). But having asked a direct representative of the company, and being told it will never happen for entirely cynical reasons, then my opinion of MM has dropped like a lead balloon. The way I feel now, I'll never buy or advocate anything from them ever again. Please feel free to point me to discussions or advocacy articles to convince me otherwise - I don't like feeling hostile towards something so popularly well-regarded
| Kev wrote: |
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I also don't think MM are alone in their self-congratulatory attitudes if the reports I've read on the recent Watchfire Webinar are accurate. |
Probably not, no. I didn't take part in the seminar, so my opinion of Watchfire is based on my view of the quality of their products, compared with how they describe themselves on their website. IMO in a nutshell - Bobby is dangerously vague, but they talk about it like it's the last word in accessibility auditing. That's why I regard them with extreme suspicion.
| Nigel Peck wrote: |
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I just posted some stuff about this to Accessify. |
OT - the <q> and <blockquote> elements have a "cite" attribute in XHTML 1, which can be the name of the person who said it, or ideally a link to the original source document
I guess it could even take an XPointer expression if the original document is XML. 
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Howdy.
As the accessibility product manager at Macromedia, please feel free to direct you frustration and rants to me. It’s my job to see that the products get more accessible with each release and that we are able to take advantages in OS level and AT level changes over time. The folks that work with me on the issue of accessibility are some of the best people I know. This issue is a passion for all of us.
I really do want folks to feel they can contact me with concerns, complaints or suggestions. I make careful lists of these things and work with each of the teams internally to deal with the issues.
There are a couple of issues raised so far and I think they are interesting. First, why aren’t the accessibility options on by default? In Flash, they largely are. Content is exposed by default. The only place where accessibility is not the default is with the components. The accessibility object adds about 1k in size to the class for each component. It is easy to add but not so easy to remove. So in order to leave the option available, we had to leave the accessibility of the components off by default. I would have preferred otherwise, but I accepted that we would persevere to find way to easily remove the accessibility object in case a customer required this for performance.
Second, why does Flash no include support for standards? This is something I talk about over beers with my friends at the W3 on a regular basis. They are particularly keen to see Flash support SVG or the DOM. This is a fairly involved subject because it not only involves Flash but the assistive technologies that would be used to read the content displayed in Flash. At the moment, there are no tools that include support for SVG. Moreover, there are no tools that can encompass the interactivity commonly used in Flash. Changes in AT can be slower in coming, given the expense and complexity of these tools. As developments emerge, I am very interested in learning of them and reflecting on how they impact the Flash platform.
Cheers,
Bob
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| Quote: |
| OT - the <q> and <blockquote> elements have a "cite" attribute in XHTML 1, which can be the name of the person who said it, or ideally a link to the original source document I guess it could even take an XPointer expression if the original document is XML. |
The way I read the spec, cite is for a URI of a source document and not a name:
| HTML 4.01 Spec wrote: |
| cite = uri [CT]
The value of this attribute is a URI that designates a source document or message. This attribute is intended to give information about the source from which the quotation was borrowed. |
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.2
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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You're absolute right - it should be a URI.
Allright .. call me irresponsible ... but it's my belief that "cite" should be able to be legitimately used for anything that it is equivalent or partly-equivalent to a literary citation - so including name, date, source, publisher and whatever else may be relevant. I believe UAs should have no default rendering behavior in respect to this attribute (as currently they don't, afaik) and that it's erroneous of the standards to restrict its value to being a URI.
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I don't believe it's erroneous of the standards to restrict its value to being a URI. Their thinking is based around the semantic web. A URI can either be a URL or a URN, using the appropriate scheme. That's where RDF and the different naming schemes come into it. A URI can be any resource (book, person, company, etc), or URL, providing it's catalogued under an appropriate naming scheme such as dublin core, http, etc.
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If cite could be used for both then it also negates it's usefullness such as right click, more information on this quote, it would have to know it was a URI.
I think another attribute is needed for a textual citation.
Yes title is there but is it right to use a generic title attribute for this?
Just to clarify you can use <cite> for this:
<q>"pot noodles are nice n easy" - <cite>Nigel Peck</cite></q>
but it means extra text on the page that you might not want when this is really meta data and is suited to an attribute.
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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Hey Nigel, I'm curious about the 'speaker' attribute in your Accessify.com post. Is that a typo or something I haven't heard of? The article made it look like you meant to put 'title' there. Just curious... Thanks!
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No I meant to put speaker or something similar, just an idea for future XHTML versions. title doesn't seem quite right, but maybe it is.Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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Oh, I get it now. I must've skimmed the post again. Sorry. 
One way I've done that is to add a visible text element to the blockquote with my own class and use :before and :after to set it aside somehow (parenthesis, block element, etc.). It would be nice if IE recognized :before and :after, though. Speaking of, adding " in the element gives double-double-quotes in just about every browser except Win IE (check your post in Mozilla). You can change this in the CSS with:
| Code: |
| q:before, q:after { content: ""; } |
Another thing that would be nice is a way to cite some print material that's not online. Perhaps there could be (or maybe there already is) another protocol for cite, like ISBN or ISSN.
| Code: |
| cite="isbn://059600396X/?page=234" |
Not sure how that would be used unless some library or vendor puts out a web services API that could handle the ISBN protocol. If that's the case, it would probably still use HTTP. I guess it would have to be a locally registered protocol like MAILTO.
Do I have to wake up? I was having such a wonderful dream...
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