[Xerte] How to disable the Tab key as the "Accessablility" key?

[Paul Swanson]

Hi Alistair,

Thanks for those comments. I agree that accessibility is important and needs to be maintained. I don't think it would be an issue for this course (a tutorial on using one of our software programs), however, because the interaction that I have on these pages is an onKeyDown event which works for the Tab key as well as any other key. I have been placing "Press any key to continue" text on the screen, but was asked to change that to "Press the Tab key to continue" to reinforce to our customers that using the Tab key is more efficient than using the mouse, and ensures that no required fields are missed. However, pressing the Tab key also places a yellow border around images and text. It's the border that I would actually like to get rid of. So I guess I should have used a subject line of "How can I change the color of the accessibility highlight border?" Changing it to the same color as my background will accomplish what I want.

There doesn't seem to be a property I can set in the Xerte interface panels, but I figure there is some property I could set in my setup script. rootIcon.accessibilityBorderColour = 0xD4E1EE or something like that would do fine. I just need to know what the property is. Does anyone know?

Thanks!


_____________________________ 
 Paul Swanson 
 Instructional Designer 
 Harland Financial Solutions 
 Paul.Swanson at harlandfs.com 
_____________________________ 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-
> bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Alistair McNaught
> Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 2:23 PM
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: RE: [Xerte] How to disable the Tab key as the "Accessablility"
> key?
> 
> Hi Paul
> If you reassign the accessibility key I'd suggest you take care to be careful to let users know the alternative key that's assigned in its place. 
Xerte is getting widely known and one of the reasons it's taking off in education is the high level of accessibility. If a non-mouse user was to come across a Xerte based resource where keyboard access had been knowingly removed they might be minded to invoke DDA legislation against the service provider. By all means enjoy tweaking, adapting and providing alternative clever ways of delivering accessibility but reduce it at your peril.
 
 
Alistair McNaught
Senior Advisor for Further Education
JISC TechDis service
The Higher Education Academy Building
Innovation Way
York Science Park