New Message: Editing accesibility for the blind

[webmaster at userland.com]

A new message was posted:

Address: http://manila.userland.com/discuss/msgReader$864

By: Brent Heyen (bheyen at earthlink.net)

Hi,

I am curently a blind graduate student in the College of Education and Human Scineces at the Unversity of Nebraska at Lincoln. My Methods class uses Manila for their class calender and personal websites. I have to use a program called JAWS (Job Access With Speach) which reads to me what is on the screen. Thus far, JAWS has had no problem readng the class calendar, however when it comes to editing it we have a complete problem. We have been able to increase Manila's accesibility by adding java bridge to the computer, and now the WYSIWYG editor can now be used, but navigation within the editing field is imposible. We have narrowed down the problem as being that the editing field is basically a page within a page, and JAWS is only able to read the main page. I can arrow down in the field, but JAWS sees no table when there is one, and If i do a search for a specific date JAWS can't find it unless it is by chance in the editing window.

I have two questions:

1: Are there any blind users of Manila out there, and how do they get around this problem?

2: What can be done to change Manila to make it more accessible to the blind?

Certainly if Userland intends to continue selling this product to colleges and Universities it should be made accessible to all.

Brent Heyen

This is a Manila site.. http://manila.userland.com/.