SC 2.4.5: Good news about AT support

Hello,


I've been doing a little "research" today. I was very excited to
discover the following:

1. JAWS 5.0 and later has a "Read current sentence" keystroke
(alt+numPad5). Executing this keystroke when a link has focus reads the
sentence without changing the focus; pressing the Enter key then follows
the link. I tested this in IE with the link as first word in the
sentence, link as last word in the sentence, and link somewhere in the
"interior" of the sentence. All were successful. This keystroke also
works in tagged PDF documents.

2. Window-Eyes has hot keys for "Read current sentence" and "Read
current paragraph" (JAWS doesn't have "Read current paragraph"; it does
have "read next paragraph" and "read previous paragraph"). The
Window-Eyes keystroke is available in version 5.5 (the most recent one);
not sure about earlier versions. I don't have Window-Eyes installed so
haven't tested it.

The Firevox screen reader (a free screen reader for Firefox which
supports Windows, Mac, and Linux) has a "speak parent element" keystroke
that reads the parent element wwithout changing the focus (e.g., if a
Read more... Link is embedded within a paragraph, Ctrl+Shift+u will read
the paragraph and leave focus on the link (if that link already has
focus, that is)).

I had no idea that the "read current sentence" was available in JAWS!
But it's been there for at least a couple of years now-- I think 5.0
came out in 2004. For all I know this keystroke has been available even
longer.

I've added the information above (minus the bit about my not having
known...) to the User agent and assistive technology support notes
section of 
Identifying the purpose of a link using link text and text associated
with the parent element

At

http://trace.wisc.edu/wcag_wiki/index.php?title=Identifying_the_purpose_
of_a_link_using_link_text_and_text_associated_with_the_parent_element_of
_the_link
John

"Good design is accessible design."

Dr. John M. Slatin, Director 
Accessibility Institute
University of Texas at Austin 
FAC 248C 
1 University Station G9600 
Austin, TX 78712 
ph 512-495-4288, fax 512-495-4524 
email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu 
Web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility 

Received on Saturday, 18 March 2006 22:43:45 UTC