Web Accessibility Toolbar EN 1.1
1. I tried to install the accessibility toolbar and it ran through the setup program but there is no toolbar appearing in IE??
a few things to try: In the internet explorer menu ensure that:- view > toolbars > lock the toolbars is unticked.
- Tools > Internet options > advanced > enable third party browser extensions (requires restart) is ticked.
- view > toolbars > accessibility toolbar is ticked.
- open and close the browser a few times.
- look closely in the section of the browser that the toolbar should appear as sometimes the toolbar will initiall appear beside / partially obscured by other toolbars you have installed (e,g, google)..
2. The resize function (e.g. 800X600) stops working....
This function is currently javascript based and i have noticed that, since installing the latest windows service packs, the resize functions stop working sometimes. So the toolbar has been updated by JUn so it no longer relies on javascript for this function, which solves the issue. The update will be available next week (about the 3rd of august).
3. Why do I get an error when I close a window in Internet explorer?
This is an issue with some browser version/operating sytem combinations, it occurs sporadically, we are working on a fix for this. we have implemented a partial fix that reduces the problem, but have not completely sorted it yet....
Many thanks to Jim McPherson who has been helping us with the testing of the dll's
4. when opening the IE-Browser i get an alert with the following text: IEEXPLORE "out of system resources".
And in the Toolbar (EN 1.0) any button icon (either this one of the CSS or this one of the Structure etc.) appears destroyed, i.e. not as a clear icon, but as a black or white spot. I'm using XP.....
Resource shortage happens in XP if the user has many applications open at once. the toolbar itself uses a small amount of system resources, but if resources are insufficient, drawing of icons will not be able to be done. If you only find this occurs when you only have a few applications running please contact me with details of the error.
5. Why does the toolbar only work in IE?
- There was a gap in “the market,” no tools comparable to those available for Mozilla were/are available for IE.
- Our programming expertise is limited (if somebody wants to work with us on versions for other browsers/operating systems we’d be interested),
- Our resources are very limited as this project is unfunded so we work on it between paid work and in our spare time
- While some people realise that there are better browsers than IE out there, their uptake is still very small, and my original idea was to raise awareness of accessibility issues and provide the tools to “the masses.”
- For better or worse, many assistive technology users use IE for web browsing, so I tend to use it for accessibility testing and browsing due to this circumstance
- What time I have had to work on developing the toolbar has so far been directed at improving the functionality and collaborating with others to create versions in other languages
- A great web developer toolbar for mozilla/firefox is available from chris pederick
" On swedish keyboards the @-sign is produced with the keystroke Alt+2. In other words, it's exactly the same as the shortcut for the resize menu in the toolbar. This means that whenever I enter an email adress in a form field on a web page, the resize menu pops up and hinders me from typing."
A quick fix is to edit the accessibility_toolbar.xml file (open in a text editor), which you will find in the folder you installed the toolbar in.
You can remove or modify the attribute 'Accesskey="2" from the resize button element:
<button type="dropdown" caption="Resize" hint="Screen Resolution" Accesskey="2" image="resize.bmp">
Note: when you use the toolbar update function the xml file is overwritten.
I am hassling JUn to include a function to disable shortcuts (soon) and am also looking at function customization feature (don't hold your breath for this one)
Thanks Henrik for bringing this issue to my attention.
- posted by steve faulkner @ 9:57 pm, Keyboard navigation conflicts: permanent link 2 comments
" When I uncheck View>Toolbars>Google, it is the Accessibility Toolbar that vanishes from sight, and when I uncheck View>Toolbars>Accessibility Toolbar, it is the Google toolbar that disappears from view!"
This appears to be a general problem with the ie toolbar menu. Google has a simple fix for it (worked for me!). Thanks to Walter for bringing it to my attention.
"When I right click on IE's toolbar, "Accessibility Toolbar" shows 3 times.I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but it doesn't remove the extra 'Accessibility Toolbar' choices."
I think this problem is because the ie registration system is a bit flaky (easy to blame it on microsoft), I have encountered similar problems with other toolbars / explorer bars. There are several free /shareware utilities out there, that may help you to remove such annoyances (see the links below), you can also try editing the registry yourself (not recommended unless you know what you are doing)
Thanks to Sam for pointing this issue out.
- posted by steve faulkner @ 5:09 pm, web accessibility t-bar living peacefully with the Google bar, amongst other things...: permanent link 0 comments
- The CSS button refreshes the page ('on click' or ctrl+alt+shift+3).
- The Structure button activates the Mouseover DOM Inspector ('on click' or ctrl+alt+shift+5) favelet from Slayeroffice.com, see the documenation on SlayerOffice.
- Selecting some text on a web page and activating the tools button ('on click' or ctrl+alt+shift+7) will result in the selected text being copied to the clipboard without formatting/styles. I find this useful when I want to copy 'plain text' to a word document. (Note: this is a bit buggy, doesn't cause any problems, but doesn't always work).
- The magnify button ('on click' or ctrl+alt+shift+m) resets the magnification to 100%.
- The AIS toolbar button links to http://www.nils.org.au/web_access.htm
The reason these features have not been documented are that they are features i have incorporated primarily for my own use, i am documenting them now so that if you come across them in unexpectedly you know what they are. I may add others as time goes on....
- posted by steve faulkner @ 5:27 pm, Undocumented Features: permanent link 0 comments
Upgrade released (EN 1.1) to deal with minor issues reported by users.
- Resize Function no longer reliant upon JavaScript
- Fix for error message that occured sporadically on browser close.
