Re: INPUT TYPE="file", speech output, & triggering mechanisms

hey gregory (see MN below):

At 7:23 PM 4/20/01, gregory j. rosmaita wrote:
>aloha, mark!
>
>you wrote:
>> someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Amaya (on Windows) uses
>> MSAA either, yet if you view the validator page on Amaya in alternate view,
>> the word "Browse..." or that text appears, which could then easily be read
>> aloud.
>
>right and right, although the second "right" is true only if your browser
>is screen-scraping to build its off-screen model, but if the "Browse"
>button is going to be included in the serial stream/navigation order based
>on the DOM tree, then the AT needs to know where to look for it...

MN:  thanks for confirming for me, that Amaya under Windows does not use MSAA.

MN:  agree on your "screen-scraping"comment, and would also agree that we'd
prefer the "browse..." button to be in the DOM tree.  i'm still stuggling
a bit to understand this INPUT TYPE = "file" thing and how the UA
responds or treats it...


>> Remember, the word "Browse..."  or that text is not in the source file
>> (nor the structure view under Amaya).
>
>right--the UA renders an edit-box in response to the INPUT TYPE="file" (so
>that the user can then enter a URI or filename, and which, by spec, can
>contain placeholder text defined by the "value" attribute), but since you
>can only declare one control type--e.g. "image" or "button"--the question
>arose, from whence the "Browse" button?  it's not defined in the markup,

MN:  I would concur with that

>at least not as far as i can glean, so it must be generated by the UA in
>order to provide a file selection mechanism (be it a dialog box in a GUI
>environment, or a command line prompt, such as that employed by pine, or a
>naked directory listing, such as that available via lynx) where such a
>functionality is available...  is an explicit "Browse" button (that could
>spawn a helper app) implicit in the idea of providing "file" as a
>control type associated with INPUT? and if one isn't provided, but the UA
>does supports HTTP PUT, is there an implicit event handler attached to the
>"file" content type? HTML4 does state unequivocally that
>
>INPUT TYPE="file"
>
>quote
>Creates a _file select_ control. User agents may use the _value_ attribute
>as the initial file name.
>unquote
>
>and, as i noted earlier in this thread, the _file select_ hyperlink in the
>above definition, which is located at:
><http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#adef-type-INPUT>
>points to:
><http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#file-select>
>which references the following definition:
>
>quote
>file select
>   This control type allows the user to select files so that their
>   contents may be submitted with a form. The _INPUT_ element is
>   used to create a file select control.
>unquote

MN:  thanks for walking me through the HTML side of the equation


>so, i suppose, by spec, since it is the UA that is responsible for
>creating a file select control (manifested as the "Browse" button in IE5
>or, theoretically, a status line prompt in a text browser), the file
>select control should be available to a COM DOM aware AT, if it knows what
>to look for, which is what i was hoping that someone like tim, cathy, jon,
>or you could tell us...

MN:  I would agree (or should I say hope) that the "browse" button would
be available to a COM DOM aware "anything", and that was my point of
testing using the object inspector of MSAA (MSAA is based in part on
COM technology), and why this topic caught my attention, when the
object inspector failed to "see" the browse button.  Ouch!   I now also
would be curious to understand just exactly how IE handles this
and why it doesn't seem to expose the button, such that MSAA can
query/find it?


>> Also, using the object inspector from MSAA (v1.3 anyway), it is unable
>> to render any information about the Browse button as viewed in IE 5.5.
>
>do you have a URI from which one can download the MSAA object inspector?

MN:  The object inspector is one of the many utility tools which ship as
part of the
software development kit (SDK) for Active Accessibility.  If you are running
Windows 98 or newer, I "believe" you already have the operating system
components installed which support MSAA.  If you goto

MN:  http://www.microsoft.com/enable/

MN:  there is a link on the far right column "Active Accessibility" which will
take you to the page which should answer all your question far better than
I can and also provide a download/install link.  I know "some" screen
readers and other AT applications make use of MSAA.

MN:  http://www.microsoft.com/enable/msaa/default.htm


>glad that this one caught your attention!
>gregory.

MN:  just trying to learn <smile>

mark

Received on Monday, 23 April 2001 17:33:18 UTC