THIS ITEM WAS REASSIGNED TO SR #105660.

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THIS ITEM WAS REASSIGNED TO SR #105660.

As early as Flash Player 6, Adobe began introducing accessibility features into Flash via the MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility) framework. Flash Player 8 and higher give assistive technology users access to Flash content on the web, but this only happens when using Internet Explorer:

http://www.adobe.com/resources/accessibility/flash8/

A much publicized example of "accessible" Flash web content can be found at the home page of J. K. Rowling:

http://www.jkrowling.com/

Here's a case study by RNIB (the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the UK):

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_jkrowling.hcsp

Yet the Gecko engine used in Firefox arguably has superior MSAA integration for non-Flash web content:

http://www-306.ibm.com/able/resources/firefox.html

http://www.mozilla.org/access/windows/at-apis#knowndif

Given the excellent level of support for Firefox from screen readers like GW-Micro Window-Eyes, the failure of the Flash plugin to expose objects to MSAA when called from Firefox has been raised as a matter of great concern on the mozilla.dev.accessibility list:

http://tinyurl.com/y68flt

Implementing the Accessibility classes is already on the Gnash TODO list. But it is crucial that Flash objects using that class be exposed correctly to the key accessibility frameworks, especially:

1) AT-SPI: the Gnome accessibility framework. This should give better access to Flash content to Linux assistive technology users, including those with motor impairments using online keyboards like GOK, and those with visual impairments using Linux screen readers such as Gnopernicus, Orca, and LSR. Supporting AT-SPI should allow integration with KDE assistive technologies (such as KTTS) too, thanks to the AT-SPI to QT Accessibility bridge planned for KDE 4.

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/

http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/qtconnection.php

2) MSAA: the framework currently used in Windows and Mozilla's Windows builds, and by Adobe Flash Player.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msaa/msaastart_9w2t.asp

3) Maybe Apple's Accessibility APIs for Mac OS X?

http://developer.apple.com/ue/accessibility/

Håkan Waara is working on Mozilla support for VoiceOver (the screen reader bundled with OS X) for Firefox 3:

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/10/13/mozilla-accessibility-summit#mac

4) Maybe UI Automation: the new accessibility framework in Windows Vista?

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/at/uiadeveloper.aspx