Re: Plugins and object element

Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> Issue: the object element can poiint to a plugin application instead of
> allowing the user to choose the most useful one.
> 
> Details:
> 
> According to most guides for using the object element with Internet Explorer,
> the way to specify multimedia content is to refer to a particular ActiveX
> control, which specifies the player to be used for the object data.
> 
> For example, there is a classid for the Adobe SVG plugin, and this is what
> gets specified. If a user has an accessibility need for a different plugin
> (for example a talking plugin), as I understand it they are unable to use
> that instead without major poking about in the systems innards.
> 
> This contradicts the requirements statement for plugin interfaces
> http://www.w3.org/TR/CX developed by the hypertext coordination group.
> 
> It should also, I think, lead to
> 1. A requirement on XHTML 2 to change the way these things are specified
> 2. A requirement / technique in user agent guidelines that a user can specify
>       the player to be used for a given content type


A similar requirement we considered (but rejected) was "The UA must 
hand off focus to ATs." This is certainly true, but not strictly
an accessibility requirement; it affects anyone who wants to use
a plugin. This seems more appropriate for /TR/CX or Common User
Agent Problems, and as you say, format specifications or XAG.

  _ Ian


-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Tuesday, 12 March 2002 16:12:01 UTC