Select the File > Switch Modes... menu to open the Select a mode dialog. Then select the Flash Accessibility option to switch to the Flash Accessibility mode.
In the Flash accessibility mode, the GUI Summary view, GUI Outline view, GUI Properties view, GUI Event view, GUI Report view, and GUI Siblings view are shown as in the GUI accessibility mode (Figure 2), but different information is shown in the GUI Properties view. See the following sections for details. In this mode, the Browser view, the Flash Outline view, and the Flash Proxy Logs view are also available.
The Flash outline view (Figure 3) is shown in the middle pane on the right side, where the runtime and internal structure of the Flash content is shown.
Flash internally uses a script language called ActionScript to move, transform, and control the visibility of objects. ActionScript is based on ECMAScript (aka JavaScript). This view shows the object's tree structure from the ActionScript perspective. Here are shown the properties of the objects such as type, value, and instance name provided by the developer, along with parent-child relationships. Flash developers can use this information to effectively modify their content and improve its accessibility.
Although it is basically impossible for an external environment to access the internal structure of content unless the content author explicitly permits it, the aDesigner make this possible by obtaining the Flash content via an internal proxy.
Each row in this view is in the form of "[text information] name(type)".
The name is an instance name provided by the developer, a field name, or a method name of an object,
which is used to point at the object or property in ActionScript.
The type is the return value of the ActionScript typeof
operator applied to the object.
The possible type values appears in the following list.
See "ActionScript Language Reference", one of the Flash manuals for details.
Icons also represent the types of the objects.
Clicking on a row shows more details about the object in the GUI Properties view. See the next section for details.
When a row is selected in the Flash Outline view, the details for that object are shown in the GUI Properties view (Figure 4) in the bottom-right corner, but the content is different from that which is shown in the GUI Accessibility mode. The displayed properties depend on the kind of entry selected. Important possible properties and their meanings include:
typeof
operator
is applied to the object.
See the previous section for possible values."Button"
for buttons, "TextField"
for text fields,
and "Array"
for arrays.target
property value) due to the assignment
of a variable object, which results in creating references to objects.
Example: _level0.button1.b1txt
target
property of the object.
This represents the order of the creation of this object from the root object. Example:
_level0.button1.container.button
getDepth
method.
An object with a larger depth value is shown in front of objects with smaller depths.true
means the object is a "Component". See Flash manuals for details.true
means the object and its descendants can be treated as a single object.
The aDesigner will not attempt to traverse its descendants when searching in the Flash Outline view.true
means users are able to input data to this object.
Example of inputable objects are text fields and check boxes._accProps
and _accImpl
instances
which are children of the object are shown.
See Flash manuals for details about _accProps
.
See source code (LabelAccImpl.as, etc.) that comes with the Flash 8 authoring environment for details about _accImpl
.
Following are the child properties of accInfo:
false
if the object is "invisible" to screen readerstrue
if the object's descendants are invisible to screen readersControl+A
check box
"focused"
, "focused,checked,focusable"
"Uncheck"
See here for other user interface elements.
The Flash Proxy Logs view is in the bottom-right pane (Figure 5). By default, the view is hidden, since the tab for GUI Properties view is selected. As described earlier, to accesses the internal structure of Flash content aDesigner uses its own internal proxy and obtains the Flash content via the proxy. The log messages for the actions of the proxy are shown in this view.
In this view, each row corresponds to one log message from the proxy. Each entry has entries for Message, ID, Source, and Time.
There are four types of log messages; a trace log without an icon, an information log with an icon, a warning log with a icon, and an error log with an icon. The trace logs are not shown by default.
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