Accessibility

_root.square1_btn._accprops = new Object(); 

_root.square1_btn._accprops.name = btn1Lang1; 

 Accessibility.updateProperties();

Auto-labeling is a quirky and powerful little tool. It can only be turned on and off through the UI. It is the only accessibility property that can not be controlled via ActionScript. If enabled, it looks for text inside or near an instance with an event driven script attached and assigns the contents of the text field as the label for that button. However, it will only assign one text field as the label.

Things can go wrong as we explore the definition of the word ‘near’. If you want to be sure things are labeled correctly, keep your text objects inside of your buttons.

Sometime Flash content is there just to be, well, flashy. Often, it serves no purpose and conveys no important content. Take any number of Flash banner adds ('punch the monkey' comes to mind), for example. Often, a little Flash movie on your Web page can make the entire Web page totally inaccessible via the keyboard or screen reader. To hide Flash content from both Web browser and screen readers, add the WMODE option to both the OBJECT and EMBED tags of your the Web page containing the Flash movie.

         <OBJECT ...>
         <PARAM NAME="wmode" VALUE="opaque">
         <EMBED wmode=opaque ...>
         </EMBED>
         </OBJECT> 

This will effectively hide the flash movie from the screen reader and the keyboard. It will still appear visibly within the page, but navigating through the page will bypass the Flash content and the screen reader will act as if it isn't even there. Only use this in the movie does not convey important content or if an alternative is provided for the content the movie does contain. If you choose not to make the movie accessible by doing one of the three options at the top of this page, then at very least, allow access to the rest of your Web page by hiding the Flash movie using this method.

In either event, it is important that Flash files contain a root level description to help screen reader users get oriented to the content of the movie quickly and easily. For simple movies, a root level description will do. For longer movies, a site info button may be needed.