Siu Lun

I’m currently trying to make beijing.100percentme.co.uk accessible. It is a flash website. Certain parts however utilises html text links, and while I’m testing with JAWs I can read and “click” on buttons. I can’t seem to do so with html text links in Flash (AS3, Flash Player 9).

I can’t find any resources or references on the net on whether I can make html text links in flash keyboard accessible.

I’ve been reading up various accessible flash tips and looking at other accessible Flash site. Such as the JKRowling site by LightMakers – I noticed they don’t have html text links thereby avoiding this problem I’m having…

Therefore… I conclude… it is impossible.

Correct me if I’m wrong. Please!

Update: Hey I found a work around. http://www.majordan.net/test/inlinelinksapp/. Next time I got to read Niqui Merret’s blog comments more carefully… >.>

I’ve finally discovered the joy of programming AS3… I can do everything the designer has done in Flash with a couple of lines of code!!

Last time I played with Flash was Flash 4 or 5, I didn’t use AS at all back then, relying on the timeline. It was interesting, but it simply took too long to do anything interesting back then!

Today AS3 seems to have given Flash a new lease of life. Now, comparing js coding to AS3 coding it is very similar and the advantage of js vs AS3 is enourmous! Particularly when we’re talking about performance and the ability to control graphically what happens.

I (heart) flash! Shame it isn’t as “accessible” as it could be. This is one big reason why I cannot use Flash in commercial business sites in the UK!

I’m not going to go and argue about Flash vs js, all I’m going to say is, I cannot see how js browser implementations can catch up to Flash in terms of the amount of power it gives us! Simply put, if I have to compare Flash with anything (other than silverlight). Flash apps is closer to Java web apps than js.

Anyhoos… Flash has definitely got a future if Adobe can first and foremost make it as accessible as it could possibly be! (i.e. make it screenreader compatible for Macs and Linux – not just those on specific software in Windows! and also give us developers more control over accessible content and be a bit more “smart” about automatic accessible contents!)

Been digging around PV3D, looks awesome, then got reminded about “Adobe” Director, I just can’t figure out what Adobe is trying to do – I think they’re very confused themselves what to do with so many packages that are now coming together in different ways. (Flash & Flex)…. why oh why are you splitting these apart! I know you’re doing it for the money, but lets be realistic, if us developers have to buy 3 different packages that in the end comes together as a single site. I would very much think of other alternatives…. (silverlight – thank god there is competition – albeit from another monopoly!)

This concludes this session of Flash ramblings. Later.

So I’ve been doing some Flash development lately, and I’ve spent over 4 days researching the best method of creating a CMS Flash website that is renewable.

Once of the things I’m really keen even when I’m doing normal web development is to minimise loading time and improve user experience. I found that there are methods to share common libraries in Flash, unfortunately most of the documentations lately have been focused in Flex.

For various reasons I’m not going to purchase Flex to develop this project. I hate how Adobe have split Flash into Flash CS3 IDE and Flex but I’ll come back to this another time.

Anyway, as I was saying I’ve found ways to use shared library between swf files in Flex, but not in Flash IDE. That is, until I found this amazing piece of work done by Matthew Tretter. Which basically brought _exclude back into Flash CS3!

It really shaved a lot of fat off my files, and whats great about it is that you only need to load the library in the root swf and then all child swfs will have access to the classes! (providing you give them the correct ApplicationDomain)