This review was made by Kathleen Anderson of Spider Web Woman Designs, using Frontpage 2002 on Windows 2000, in May/June 2001 and the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Recommendation dated 3 February 2000
There are additional comments in response from Heather Swayne, a Programs Manager at Microsoft Accessible Technologies Group.
This review was last updated by Charles McCathieNevile on $Date: 2001/12/17 05:28:52 $, and is based on an earlier review of FrontPage 2000
The reviewer’s first exposure to FrontPage 2002 pretty much agrees with the FrontPage 2000 (Win98) AU Review done by Jim Allen in April 2000.
Please note the following exceptions:
In the Tools | Pages Options | HTML Source process, when saving files, if you check ‘Reformat using the rules below’, and check the rule ‘Tag Names are lower case’, it changes the case of the word DOCTYPE in the DOCTYPE declaration to lower case.
Response by Heather Swayne:
This actually is not something that FrontPage does by default. Instead, this is a user-selected option. Users can avoid this problem by clearing the Tag Names Are Lowercase checkbox. The default for this setting is Preserve Existing HTML. Microsoft FrontPage doesn't expect the majority of users to change this particular option.
There are several wizards that come with Frontpage 2002 that allow you to create complete web sites by specifying just a few options.These wizards include:Corporate Presence, Database Interface, Discussion Web, and Import Web.Unfortunately, these wizards do not use your default document when creating pages, so if you’ve coded a DOCTYPE declaration in your default document (see below), it will not be applied to your new web.
Response by Heather Swayne:
Some (though not all) FrontPage wizards work off of pages in the template area. One possible workaround to this issue is to modify the DOCTYPE of the pages in the template area as well as the "normal" template. Note, however, that this will only solve the problem for those wizards that work off of template files, which not all of the wizards mentioned do.
One note: the Import Web wizard simply imports pages from an existing Web. The DOCTYPE of the original pages is preserved during the import process.
When inserting an image, there is no prompt for the author to add alternative text.
The “Default DOCTYPE Tutorial” at: http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/tutorials/doctypesolution.asp still works.
When creating or editing a text hyperlink, the Edit Hyperlink function now allows for the entry of a title attribute.Select “Screen Tip’, which brings up the ‘Set Hyperlink ScreenTip’ dialog box.Type the title attribute in the ‘ScreenTip text’ box, and press OK.
Tried using the FrontPage 2000 Keyboard Shortcuts as listed on: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/download/products/office/fp2k/keyboard.txt
All of the shortcuts listed in the document still apply, although with the new features added in Frontpage 2002, the list will most likely be updated. One problem did crop up, which may be due to the reviewer’s inexperience with keyboard navigation. When pasting the clipboard contents, an icon appears with a dropdown list with radio buttons to which allow the user to fine tune the paste options; the reviewer was unable to determine how to get to that icon using the keyboard.The reviewer was also unable to find comparable options in the toolbar.
Responses by Heather Swayne:
The definitive keyboard shortcut list for FrontPage 2002 is the one included in the online help for FrontPage 2002. You can access this shortcut list by pressing F1 for help, pressing Ctrl+Tab to move focus into the Microsoft FrontPage Help content pane, and pressing Tab until you reach the Keyboard Shortcuts help topic.
The icon described here is a Smart Tag icon. As described in the Keyboard Shortcuts help topic, you can drop down the menu associated with that icon by pressing Alt+Shift+F10 whenever the icon appears.
Accessibility features in FrontPage 2002 - The Help section contains information on accessibility features in FrontPage 2002, but the commands documented use the words click and drag quite frequently.I have attached a copy of the Help section.
FrontPage 2002 supports speech recognition.It is accessed from the Tools menu. There are no special system requirements, except a headset with a microphone.
Response by Heather Swayne:
The speech recognition tools in FrontPage 2002 are designed as a productivity enhancement, not as a full assistive technology. Users who require the full functionality of assistive speech recognition tools should consult http://www.microsoft.com/enable/ for a list of speech recognition tools available from third-party vendors.
FrontPage 2002 made other improvements that we believe may help those people with disabilities. FrontPage users now have the ability to specify the ALT text of image maps directly from the user interface. These attributes are also now preserved correctly during editing. Also, in all FrontPage themes, wizard pages, and templates, FrontPage 2002 supplies alt-text for picture bullets, dividers, and banner images: "Bullet", "Banner image", and "Dividing Line Image" respectively.