Backplane XG Teleconference -- 12 Aug 2008

<Charlie> thx

<scribe> Scribe: Gregory_Rosmaita

<scribe> ScribeNick: oedipus

<Charlie> you the man!

<Charlie> you bet

"the ability to cause assistive technology (AT) to speak. By using WAI-ARIA, AxsJAX is able to manipulate the DOM such that an ARIA-aware browser plus assistive technology (AT) combination will generate and receive the necessary events which cause the AT to speak what the web developer wishes to be spoken. "

<Charlie> yes, was just reading the AxsJAX stuff

<Charlie> on google code

good

<Charlie> this is raman's work?

of course!

<Charlie> sure

the key is that we are planning on using ARIA enabled tools: dojo supports ajax, and YUI also is integrating aria support

<Charlie> would like to understand better what that means

<Charlie> devil is in the details...

if it is built-in from the start, then the level of accessibilty is much higher than if an overlay or middleware has to intervene

<Charlie> we might have a really nice story in the use of xforms in dojo with the ubiquity approach

<Charlie> i.e. providing the accessibility DOM from the outset as an authored artifact

<Charlie> rather than built after the fact and exposed

<Charlie> not sure if any of this makes sense

basically, scripted objects don't have keyboard support or navigational flow - ARIA allows an AT to interact with an embedded widget

agree re: ubiquity approach with dojo

<Charlie> maybe we can look at the custom control that rahul has built in yui over the last few weeks...for calendars and color picking

yes!

<Charlie> then talk about how it could be made accessible using aira in dojo/xforms

i also know the head of yahoo accessibility, victor tsaran

<Charlie> cool

basically, ARIA keeps embedded objects and widgets from being perceptual black holes, and allows user interaction with the object/widget by bi-lateral communication between the DOM, ARIA and an AT (assistive technology)

it's something that was needed 5 years ago - we didn't know how long the development process would take

ARIA in Gmail Blog: http://www.marcozehe.de/2008/08/04/aria-in-gmail-1-alerts/

we had google reps at the last ARIA sub-committee meeting to discuss ARIA issues that they have uncovered in deployment

minutes are at: http://www.w3.org/2008/08/11-pf-minutes.html

<Charlie> thx...will check that out, sounds like it's the kind of feedback that is very helpful

<Charlie> which WG is doing ARIA?

protocols & formats: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-primer/

<Charlie> thx

latest editor's drafts -- made public to assist in troubleshooting

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria - the ARIA spec itself

WAI-ARIA Roadmap (editor's draft) - http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-roadmap

WAI-ARIA Best Practices: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices

just added some resources to my proto-page - weba11y.org which is maintained by becky gibson of IBM and a dojo development team leader and point-person for accessibility (a11y)

<Charlie> here's the link to the calendar html source that rahul will show:

<Charlie> http://ubiquity-xforms.googlecode.com/svn/branches/calendar/_samples/yui-custom-controls/input-calendar.html

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/app-backplane/wiki/User_talk:GJR#Developers.27_Resources

thanks -- i'll check it out now

<Charlie> it should come up and run directly off that URL

loading as we type..

<Charlie> k

problem 1: there is no explicit "Submit" mechanism - this is a WCAG 1.0/2.0 violation

http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag10

http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag20

<Charlie> doubt this page actually does anything other than show the calendars...

<Charlie> it's to illustrate the code as being checked into the ubiquity project

<Charlie> hi steven!

still, would be good to make sure the example is WCAG compliant

aloha, steven!

<Steven> hi

<Steven> scribing on another call right now

<Charlie> let's map out a demo for this XG to do that

<Charlie> that we can then show at the tech plenary

wunderbar!

<Charlie> LOL

recorded demos of ARIA in ACTION: http://www.weba11y.com/demos/index.html

<Steven> �� for Gregory's copy buffer

thanks - er, danke

Introductions & Agenda Additions/General Comments

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-app-backplane/2008Aug/0006.html

<Charlie> http://ubiquity-xforms.googlecode.com/svn/branches/calendar/_samples/yui-custom-controls/input-calendar.html

<Charlie> Agenda: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-app-backplane/2008Aug/0006.html

CW: GJR and i have been chatting about ARIA and accessibility
... want to move towards planning set of demos for tech plenary

<Steven> rssagent, make log public

CW: need to get back to Debi Dahl and identify other WGs we want to meet with
... start with rahul's demo
... segue from custom control to ARIA stuff - custom control accessibility
... abstract UI control tree might support ARIA enabling
... JJ read paper last night - didn't know about Mark Birbeck's SMIL work
... scripting limitations of SMIL
... agenda addenda?

Rahul's Calendar Picker Example

http://ubiquity-xforms.googlecode.com/svn/branches/calendar/_samples/yui-custom-controls/input-calendar.html

CW: platforms? using mac

GJR: using FF3.01 with JAWS9 on WinXP Pro9

GJR will try later with orca (GNOME screen reader) and FF3.01

CW: shall i use web dialogs?

JJ: doesn't work in safari -- doesn't crash it, but nothing happens

<Charlie> http://ubiquity-xforms.googlecode.com/svn/branches/calendar/_samples/yui-custom-controls/input-calendar.html

CW: don't think will work with Safari and Opera

Rahul: calendar control exposed as xforms input or xforms range - airline reservation scenario
... started with YUI library - object, leverage YUI widgets and add ubiquity-xform
... 3 custom controls - reason for 3 variants is to explore xforms markup - one uses CSS class, one uses datatype and one uses XForms appearance attribute
... could come from different AJAX libraries; using xforms model to tie together across AJAX libraries (backplane end of it)
... can do variants by tweaking appearance -- popup calendar, standing calendar
... just started with this excercise

Charlie: current value in data model that you are bound to, can edit from either direction

Rahul: since using data bindings provided by xforms model - if look at source, very little application code to perform synchronization; using AJAX library YUI provides bindings; still need application mode

CW: using ubiquity model all UI provided by YUI framework
... xforms controls in play, AJAX doing custom widget rendering; child of xforms control
... if look at DOM, separate label for xforms, child container element for what is needed by AJAX library which perfoms rendering
... tying to accessibility, dives down below visible markup; factors DOM in running browser; interaction and data binding used for presentational purposes, will be easy to integrate ARIA interfaces

Approach to AJAX

CW: abstract UI control good starting point for adding ARIA to support assistive technology
... illustrates use case - ubiquity approach via AJAX in sub-trees, could be leveraged for accessibility
... any questions/comments on controls?

GJR: lack of explicit submit mechanism for form (WCAG violation)

JB: hangs my machine

Rahul: can try locally -- incredibly faster

JJ: if inspect dom via FF, first control has input stuff, but where is calendar input
... if walk through DOM tree see input control, but no trace of the calenar inputs

Rahul: in FireBug go to HTML tag
... open BODY and will find TABLE in there; expand that

JJ: table incomplete -- only first column before variable tag
... ah, hidden in different place then i thought they'd be
... table with 1 row that happens to stack

CW: ARIA makes distinction between A11y DOM and UA DOM; additional level of tree stucture; why isn't this abstract UI tree in XForms? giving authoring story to provide community

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#tree

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#treegrid

i think i need to call back in

<Steven> we hear you

<Charlie> k

<Steven> JohnBoyer: I still use IE 3.2

<Steven> :-p

<John_Boyer> I want to make sure we still have Opera compatibility!

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/#grid

CW: think about xf namespace elements are where properties are
... intuition - hiding calendar is clean -- does accessibilty make cleaner
... should we take further to ascertain how accessibility cna be obtained

JJ: like what i hear - doesn't mess up DOM, IDs all there -- much better

CW: shadowing - XBL something like this
... demo ideal for the point that can work today - AJAX implementation plus ARIA could provide support for xforms on today's browsers - good to take to WAI and Forms at Tech Plenary
... make sense to follow up with GJR - working on simple load form to illustrate simple app - not only nice looking form that runs in YUI and/or AJAX

??: calendaring important - may need more work

CW: part of GUI aspect of form

GJR: if have access to code, can ARIA enable

best ARIA test suite so far: http://test.cita.uiuc.edu/aria/

CW: get discussion going on list - can point to form fragments, and add ARIA support to them

John_Boyer: loan form - how do you tell someone who cannot see something that is not relevant and now visible?
... if type principal for loan, not enough info - need to set duration of loan - still need to calculate interest rate; when entered enough info, can show you something you couldn't do before

CW: map between XForms and ARIA

GJR: will provide list of ARIA derived from XForms

CW: mapping between ubiquity events and control - core javascript behavior in ubiquity that is ARIA enabled

XForms Model and UI controls in SMIL

CW: interesting notion of data model extension serving as UI for SMIL agent to drive dynamic properties and synchronize

JJ's background paper: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-app-backplane/2008Aug/0005.html

CW: wanted to highlight need for custom loop code to drive the google map API
... MarkB has example using XBL - can reuse that - uses data model and UI into googlemap logic; set of xforms elements that handles all google map info; on SMIL side, have xforms control as well; can use ubiquity to add databinding into bicycle tour

JJ: back up one step - idea started as way of getting state in model; evolving into SMIL execution model - declarative, unlike javascript; trying to see how a declarative execution model enable a certain classs of applicatinos without using javascript
... always will be apps that need javascript, but large number of places where could use SMIL plus data model; applications can then be transformed, accessified - can do what you can't do in the javascript black hole

CW: showed in paper SMIL and XForms components

JJ: map feature - googlemaps part of problem - modifying text in HTML - if xforms output can be used, once data model changes, can change visible text on page but cannot change the URI of a link
... hoping to use XBL - but no XBL for Safari
... screen shots on page 2 - can't change link via xforms - so little bit of javascript that smashes value from data model into HREF of anchor
... for my types of apps, if have attribute value templates - in any attribute value, can put xforms expression in curly braces and gets evaluated at runtime

CW: could have same result as rahul

JJ: then have to tell stylesheets that though this is not an anchor tag, should use formatting defined for anchor

CW: Ubiquity SMIL project Mark Birbeck is running?

JJ: no

CW: just found out about it recently

GJR: notes that safari being ARIA enabled

JJ: have to look at how much of SMIL is implemented for type of demos want to sho
... would solve plugin problem when viewing demo

GJR: http://juicystudio.com/article/safari-support-aria.php

CW: will post SMIL ubiquity info on list

<Charlie> http://code.google.com/p/ubiquity-smil/

JJ: research work is "done" from one point of view; from another deployable, anything deployable should advance the work

CW: compelling point in paper is data driven API - show how Mark done from maps side and JJ from SMIL side - add to list of tech plenary demos?

JJ: wouldn't mind doing demo, but participation in person a big if
... if ubiquity-smil code can help me with more depth - video synchronization; smil plugin for safari

CW: limitations

JB: ubiquity is targetting safari as well
... won't be long, but might not be soon enough

JJ: understand: FF would be nicer platform, but in Safari, get binding integration free - not available in FF - anyone know of javascript bridge for FF?

<jackjansen> Javascript <-> Python, that is...

CW: next week: set of demos that can take to tech plenary - calendar picker and JJ's demo
... take pulse of projects and decide about moving forward

<scribe> ACTION: Gregory - post list of aria roles, properties and states derived from or related to XForms concepts [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/08/12-backplane-minutes.html#action01]

- DRAFT -

Backplane XG Teleconference

12 Aug 2008

Attendees

Contents

Introductions & Agenda Additions/General Comments

Rahul's Calendar Picker Example

Approach to AJAX

XForms Model and UI controls in SMIL

Summary of Action Items

Scribe.perl diagnostic output