Re: [orca-list] Does Orca support Flash content?

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

Hello,
Yes I agree with that general comment on flash content not being 
supported by orca. There are a few things I would like to note though:
1. There is some flash content you can get limited use out of, eg. the 
BBC iplayer service is possible to listen to programmes again but you do 
have a few extra hoops to jump through as you rely on the auto-start 
feature for the stream. In short, with the iplayer example you must 
launch the stream from the program website rather than the page the 
iplayer listing page takes you to. As a side note though, the iplayer 
example has a better work around, there are some scripts called 
get-iplayer (debian has a package in its repository) which will download 
the programme stream and put it in a MP3 file which you can play in the 
player of your choice.
2. On the question of if its possible for flash content to be 
accessible, well the answer is yes but it will require developers of 
flash plugins to make them accessible (I don't know about HTML5). The 
main plugin we think of for flash is the adobe one, but adobe don't seem 
to make there products accessible on any other platform other than 
windows. May be orca users and Mac voiceover users should get together 
here and push adobe for it, but I don't know what sort of success that 
would bring. An alternative may be to try and work with one of the 
opensource flash plugin groups (eg. swfdev or gnash), and we may be able 
to do more than just apply pressure as we have access to the source code 
to propose patches.
3. Could we control web developers, well may be not quite control but 
there may be some who could be influenced. There may be some who 
actually feel they want there content accessible and have read the 
information about adobe being accessible on windows but hadn't realised 
what the situation is on Linux/unix/Mac (essentially anything but 
windows). Then there are those who either would find it embarrassing or 
would have legal issues about their content not being accessible who may 
like to know what the situation is for non-windows users. Does anyone 
have any figures on what sort of proportion of blind users use platforms 
other than windows?

I personally would suggest going down the route of working with one of 
the opensource developers like swfdec or gnash as that won't build up 
the image of us whinging and accessibility being a problem one has to 
deal with (for those who have a spare moment may be this video linked to 
from the OSI website will explain more http://blip.tv/file/1137040).

Michael Whapples
On -10/01/37 20:59, Steve Holmes wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 01:39:55PM +0430, Parham Doustdar wrote:
>    
> > Hi there,
> >
> > I was wondering if Orca supports flash content in webpages?
> >      
> Based on my brief experiences with it, no! I personally hate flash! I
> wish they would get rid of the stuff.  But since we cannot control web
> developers, what do we do? I heard someone say that HTML 5 might
> render flash to be irrelevant; I sure hope so as long as HTML 5 is
> fully compatible with Orca.
>
>