Webkit, the HTML rendering engine that powers Safari and many other components of the Mac OS, has recently completed a number of key bug fixes and enhancements where regards accessibility. While these are very technical, we are providing some information and links below, as we believe these fixes will lead to dramatically improved accessibility in Safari and other applications under Mac OS X. As some links below show, Apple has developers contributing to the open source project themselves to address accessibility issues.

• Tabindex support for all elements [Bug | Trac]
• Basic Accessible Rich Internet Applications support [Bug | Trac]
• Desktop-Devel-List Original Post

Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is an ongoing feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Now for this week’s tip!

Finding it hard to remember all those great VoiceOver navigation commands while browsing the web? You can bring up a complete list of them in a menu, including their key commands, by pressing VO-Shift-F for "Find". And, as an added bonus, did you know that those same commands will work in documents as well, such as those created with TextEdit?

Until Next time!

Today, Microsoft released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0, the latest version of their popular instant messaging client for the Live Messenger and Office Communications services. Unfortunately, Microsoft apparently paid little or no attention to accessibility.

Like most Mac software, Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 could have been made accessible. In fact, it nearly is. Most controls in the program are properly tagged, and what minor access issues exist in the bulk of the user interface are cosmetic to the VoiceOver user.

The problem arises if you try to use the application for…well…instant messaging. From our initial tests, it appears that you cannot access the text areas of a conversation window without calling up a different window, although the other controls in the conversation window are available.

To read a conversation, for example, you can press Command-Comma to open the Preferences dialog. Focus, instead of moving to the Preferences Dialog, moves to the text of the current conversation window. You can then interact with the HTML content and read messages that have come in so far, or move focus to the second HTML content area to send a message. This might be an annoying but usable workaround if the HTML content area where messages come in displayed new messages as they come in. It doesn’t. To view new messages you have to close the Preference dialog, turn VoiceOver off and on again, then repeat the process.

This clearly appears to be nothing more than complacency on Microsoft’s part. Clearly this instant messaging client has everything in place to be accessible. Microsoft just didn’t care enough to check and fix the bugs.

If you’d like to see better access to Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0, we encourage you to contact Microsoft through their Accessibility Site.

Today, AT&T Wireless announced a new Text Accessibility Plan (TAP) for the iPhone, intended to give users with hearing and speech disabilities unlimited text messaging, Web browsing and e-mail for $40.00 per month.

"Our Text Accessibility Plan allows customers who are deaf or have hearing or speech disabilities to literally tap out their communications on the go," says vice president of
Product Management, Voice Products and Affiliate Marketing for AT&T’s wireless unit, Carlton Hill. "Now with TAP for iPhone, users can tap, flick and pinch the innovative Multi-Touch touch screen for a completely new world of functionality."

To qualify, customers must complete an application for eligibility. The form is available at this link.