Techniques for WCAG 2.0

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FLASH16: Making actions keyboard accessible by using the click event on standard components

Applicability

This technique relates to:

User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes

See User Agent Support for Flash for general information on user agent support.

Description

The objective of this technique is to demonstrate how to invoke a scripting function in a way that is keyboard accessible by attaching it to keyboard-accessible, standard Flash components provided by the Adobe Flash Professional authoring tool. In order to ensure that scripted actions can be invoked from the keyboard, they are associated with standard Flash components such as the Button component. The click event of these components is device independent. While the "CLICK" event is a mouse event, it is actually mapped to the default action of a button. The default action occurs when the user clicks the element with a mouse, but it also occurs when the user focuses the element and hits the space key, and when the element is triggered via the accessibility API.

Examples

Example 1: Click event on a button

This example shows a button that uses the MouseEvent.CLICK event to change its label. This event will fire both on mouse click and when the space key is pressed

Example Code:

import fl.controls.Button;
import fl.accessibility.ButtonAccImpl;

ButtonAccImpl.enableAccessibility();

var testBtn = new Button();
testBtn.label = "click me";
testBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, clickHandler, false);
addChild(testBtn);
testBtn.x = testBtn.y = 10;

function clickHandler(e) {
  e.target.label = "Thanks";
}

This approach is demonstrated in the working version of click event on a button. The source of click event on a button is available.

Example 2: Pending example

Editorial Note: The wiki source for FLASH16 indicated there was an action to add a second example.

Tests

Procedure

When a Flash Movie contains interactive controls, confirm that:

  1. Standard Flash components are used for the controls

  2. The controls use the "click" event

Expected Results

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.

Techniques are Informative

Techniques are informative—that means they are not required. The basis for determining conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the success criteria from the WCAG 2.0 standard—not the techniques. For important information about techniques, please see the Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria section of Understanding WCAG 2.0.