Re: Screen readers and <<, <, >, >> characters

Martha:
It occurs to me after reading the follow up posts to your question that the
buttons you are asking about may have been created by the FrontPage 2000
Database Results Wizard.  If so, there is a way to change the characters on
the buttons to text that is read out loud by JAWS when using the tab key for
navigation:

Look in the _fpclass folder for the file called fbdbrgn1.inc  If you don't
see the _fpclass folder, go to Tools | Web Settings | Advanced | Options -
the checkbox for 'Show documents in hidden directories' needs to be checked.

Here's an example of some changes you can make:

fp_sFirstLabel = "First 5 Records "
fp_sPrevLabel = "Previous 5 Records "
fp_sNextLabel = "Next 5 Records "
fp_sLastLabel = "Last 5 Records "
fp_sDashLabel = " -- "

Here's where it's being used:
http://www.osc.state.ct.us/finance/options.htm

If you're not referring to FrontPage, hopefully this post may help someone
else who is   :-)


Kathleen Anderson, Webmaster
Office of the State Comptroller
Hartford, Connecticut   06106
voice: 860.702.3355 fax: 860.702.3634
e-mail: kathleen.anderson@po.state.ct.us
URL: http://www.osc.state.ct.us/




----- Original Message -----
From: "Martha Wilkes" <Martha.Wilkes@sas.com>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 10:09 AM
Subject: Screen readers and <<, <, >, >> characters


> Apologies if this has been covered, but I couldn't find it in the
archives.
>
> Some of our web applications use the following characters as navigation
links for large tables (or as button labels, depending on the application).
I'm sure you're all familiar with them:
>
> "<<" means go back to the first page
> "<" means go back to the previous page
> ">" means go to the next page
> ">>" means go to the last page
>
> The screen readers we have tested with (IBM Home Page, JAWS) read these
characters as "greater than" and "less than" (as they should, since this is
what these characters really mean). Now this might not be a big deal if
vision-impaired users are already accustomed to hearing "greater than" and
knowing that it means "go to the previous page". Does anyone know if this is
the case?
>
> We put more descriptive information in the <title> tag, but the screen
readers don't seem to read that info at all.
>
> TIA for any insight you can provide.
>
> martha.wilkes@sas.com | 919.531.1416
>
>

Received on Thursday, 21 June 2001 13:02:23 UTC