From: Matt May [mattmay@adobe.com]
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 12:58 PM
To: Jamal Mazrui; Andrew Kirkpatrick
Cc: Jamal Mazrui home
Subject: Re: Fruit basket app in Adobe Flex/Flash

Accessibility is only supported on Windows XP and up.


-----Original message-----

  From: Jamal Mazrui <Jamal.Mazrui@fcc.gov>
  To: Matt May <mattmay@adobe.com>, "akirk@adobe.com" <akirk@adobe.com>
  Cc: Jamal Mazrui home <jamal@empowermentzone.com>
  Sent: Fri, Apr 22, 2011 16:31:36 GMT+00:00
  Subject: FW: Fruit basket app in Adobe Flex/Flash


   Forwarded Message


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  From: programmingblind-bounce@freelists.org [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Don Marang
  Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 12:03 PM
  Subject: Re: Fruit basket app in Adobe Flex/Flash


    I have an update of Flash support in Thunderbird.  I forgot that Firefox automatically removed Flash a while ago when it was discovered that it was a serious security risk.  For some reason, they just removed it rather than updating Flash.  I think the fix was not yet available when they had to take action.  


  Therefore, when I attempted to use the Fruit Basket demo, Flash was not installed.  Perhaps the demo code should make sure Flash 10 or greater is installed.  

  With the latest version of Flash (10.2 as I recall), the Flash object is now recognized.  However, only one button, labeled "FruitBasket" is available toJAWS and seems to do nothing.  

  Orca still sees no Flash object on the demo page in Vinux.  I will check if the latest source code from git master changes anything.  

  I have not yet updated to Firefox 4.0 on either platform.  


    Don Marang
    Vinux Software Development Coordinator - vinuxproject.org
    There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any real substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working on things that matter.
    -- Dean Kamen 

    Hi Don, 
    I am curious what screen reader and browser versions you have tried with the demo.  What happens with Orca and Firefox?  Also, Can anyone report on results with VoiceOver and Safari? 

    I found the best results with the latest JAWS and NVDA.  JAWS 12 includes the Flex controls within the web page in virtual mode, whereas JAWS 10 (have not tried 11 yet), requires turning off the virtual cursor in order to notice anything between the "Flash Start" and "Flash End" statements on the page.  NVDA indicates there is an "embedded object" -- pressing Enter opens it. 

    I think the input box for entering a fruit name probably did not disappear, but at least with a JAWS version less than 12, the "Fruit" label is not spoken consistently.  I do not know why.  I also noticed a problem of having to tab several times with JAWS 10 before arriving at the input box, even though the code tries to set focus to it initially. 

    I want to compare the accessibility of this fruit basket with the couple of Silverlight ones that others from this list have recently contributed to FruitBasketDemos.org.  Let's keep the discussion going.  I am going to give feedback directly to Adobe's accessibility group as well. 

    According to the Adobe web site, Flex apps can be built to run on iOS and Android as well, so this is potentially a cross-platform way of developing apps with essentially the same code. 

    Jamal 

     On Wed, 20 Apr 2011, Don Marang wrote: 


      Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:08:06 -0400 
      From: Don Marang <donald.marang@gmail.com> 
      Reply-To: programmingblind@freelists.org 
      To: programmingblind@freelists.org 
      Subject: Re: Fruit basket app in Adobe Flex/Flash 

      Great work!  This could be very useful. 

      What are the remaining issues with the demo?  I  only noticed two issues. 
      after entering the first fruit, it was added to the list, then the edit box disappeared.  Second at the "bottom" of the Flash object there is an unlabeled graphic.  It only says "graphic 9" before adding any fruit and "graphic 10" after. 


      *Don Marang* 
      Vinux Software Development Coordinator - vinuxproject.org <http://www.vinuxproject.org/> 
      There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any real substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working on things that matter. 
      -- Dean Kamen 

      On 4/20/2011 8:40 AM, Jamal Mazrui wrote: 

        From the archive 
        http://EmpowermentZone.com/flex_fruit.zip 

        This fruit basket program is developed with the Adobe Flex 4 framework. It uses Flash Player as a virtual machine to run code compiled from one of two languages:  ActionScript -- similar to JavaScript -- or MXML -- a declarative markup language.  The compiled code, FruitBasket.swf, is hosted in a web page, FruitBasket.htm, which serves as a wrapper for the app.  Flash Player 10 is required on the client computer.  Supported web browsers are Internet Explorer and Firefox. 

        The free Flex 4 SDK is available in a zip archive from 
        http://OpenSource.adobe.com 

        It includes a command-line compiler, mxmlc.exe.  There are two versions of the source code:  FruitBasket.mxml and FruitBasket.as, using the MXML approach and the ActionScript approach, respectively.  The batch files BuildMXML.bat and BuildAS.bat compile these files, creating FruitBasket.swf (the extension stands for ShockWave Flash) in either case. 

        Please note, however, that although FruitBasket.as compiles, the code evidently still needs some tweaking because the app does not work properly.  The code is left in this distribution in case others may learn from it and take it furhter. 

        This app tries to follow best practices in developing accessible Flex apps, as explained at 
        http://adobe.com/accessibility 

        A collection of text tutorials about Flex development -- saved f 