User Guide

18 Chapter 1: About Components
Accessibility and components
A growing requirement for web content is that it should be accessible; that is, usable for people
with a variety of disabilities. Visual content in Flash applications can be made accessible to the
visually impaired with the use of screen reader software, which provides a spoken audio
description of the contents of the screen.
When a component is created, the author can write ActionScript that enables communication
between the component and a screen reader. Then, when a developer uses components to
build an application in Flash, the developer uses the Accessibility panel to configure each
component instance.
Most components built by Macromedia are designed for accessibility. To find out whether a
component is accessible, see its entry in Chapter 6, “Components Dictionary,” on page 91. When
you’re building an application in Flash, you’ll need to add one line of code for each component
(
mx.accessibility.ComponentNameAccImpl.enableAccessibility();), and set the
accessibility parameters in the Accessibility panel. Accessibility for components works the same
way as it works for all Flash movie clips.
Most components built by Macromedia are also navigable by the keyboard. Each component’s
entry in Chapter 6, “Components Dictionary,” indicates whether or not you can control the
component with the keyboard.