Comments on: Flash & The Quest for Accessibility – Part #1

By: Ohio Company Introduces Buckeye History on Deck of Playing Cards | License Android iPhone Online Flash SWF PC MAC Games

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:58:23 +0000

[...] # # More Play Press Releases Canal Winchester, OH (PRWEB) July 16, 2007 Newt's Playing Cards has published a deck of Buckeye Play…lklore and even how to plant your own buckeye [...]

By: Andreas Weber

Andreas Weber — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:59:47 +0000

Congrats for the nomination for Master at the Best of Swiss Web Awards: this outstanding educational game would be a worthy winner – keeping my fingers crossed!
Cheers!
Andreas

By: Christophe Strobbe

Christophe Strobbe — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:02:06 +0000

Oh, I forgot ISO/IEC 13066-6 for the Java Accessibility API.

By: Sandro

Sandro — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:11:59 +0000

Thanks for all the information Christophe.

I’m not suprised that MS claims Windows Vista < -> Windows 7 to be cross-platform. Very entertaining though :).

By: Christophe Strobbe

Christophe Strobbe — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:05:54 +0000

Hi Sandro,

Thanks for the clarification.
Standardising the accessibility APIs is apparently the goal of ISO/IEC 13066, a multipart standard/specification/technical report (not each part may end up as an actual standard) being discussed within ISO/IEC SC JTC 1/SC 35 (User interfaces). Part 1 should cover requirements and recommendations for interoperability, part 2 the Windows accessibility API, part 3 IAccessible2, part 4 the Linux accessibility API; part 5 has been reserved for a future Technical Report on the Apple Macintosh OS.
IAccessible2 has a lot in common with the Java Accessibility API and the GNOME Accessibility API because the goal was more or less to bring Windows capabilities up to the level of ATK/AT-SPI.
I don’t know if their will ever be a cross-platform accessibility API. (Well, Microsoft says that UIAutomation is cross-platform because it works on Windows Vista and Windows 7 and there is an ATK bridge.)

By: Sandro

Sandro — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:23:02 +0000

Hi Christophe,

ok, “standardized” may have been the wrong word and Microsoft UI Automation is actually the successor to MSAA. What i meant to say is that MSAA is probably the API that has been available the longest and up to this day was the most reliable to implement. I’m not so much aware of all the different implementations on OSX and Linux since i hardly use these Platforms except for the occasional testing of cross-platform content. But your comment actually highlights quite well the need for a really “standardized” api that could be used across platform/devices.

What i was trying to say is, i understand that Adobe only implemented MSAA so far as all the other accessibility apis where evolving.

Here’s hoping that a future version of the flash player will gives us cross-platform accessibility features.

By: Christophe Strobbe

Christophe Strobbe — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:17:11 +0000

Hi Sandro,
You write that “to this day [MSAA] seems that it is the only documented and standardized API out there”.
In what sense is MSAA “standardized”? Are you aware of the GNOME Accessibility API (ATK API and AT SPI), IAccessible2 (Linux Foundation released version 1.2 on 21 June 2010), Microsoft UI Automation, the Macintosh accessibility APIS for Carbon and Cocoa and the Java Accessibility API (not to mention the several accessibility APIs for mobile platforms that were released in the last two years)?