When you have ordered all the elements with .tabIndex, and you want to test out the Reading Order with a screen reader, you will have to publish and open your file in Internet Explorer. This is because the screen reader works with MSAA, that runs inside of the browser. MSAA pulls out the content of your Flash movie, and feeds it to the screen reader. But to test out the Tab Order, by tabbing through the movie, you don’t have to leave Flash.

TIP: You can tab through your Flash movie in Publish Preview mode (CTRL + Enter) by turning off the internal shortcuts in Flash. Press CTRL + Enter. Go to Control > Disable Keyboard Shortcuts in the preview window. Now you can tab through your Flash movie to test the Tab Order.

To read all the tips, select ‘Flash Accessibility Tips’ on the side bar.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Flash Accessibility Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.