Eclipse Accessibility Tools Framework 1.2.0

1.2.0

Description

The Accessibility Tools Framework (ACTF) is a subproject of the Eclipse Technology Project.

ACTF is a framework that serves as an extensible infrastructure upon which developers can build a variety of utilities that help to evaluate and enhance the accessibility of applications and content for people with disabilities. A collection of example utilities will also be provided which were created on top of the framework such as compliance validation tools, assistive technology simulation applications, usability visualization tools, unit-testing utilities, and alternative accessible interfaces for applications.

API Certification

The project leadership certifies that the APIs in this release are "Eclipse Quality".

Architectural Issues

Extensible

  •  8 extension points are available

Reusable modules

  •  HTML parser, ODF API, Web Browser Editor, ... 

 

Non-API use in ACTF

  • ACTF uses several components from swt.internal to access native applications
    • to get accessibility information
    • to control existing Text-to-Speech engines
    • to embed applications (IE, OpenOffice.org, etc.) as Eclipse Editor/View for accessibility evaluation

       
  • ACTF also uses reflection method to obtain HTML source, live DOM, URL, etc. from existing Browser components, such as SWT Browser Editor or Browser Output View.
  • For more details including migration plan:
  • https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=259250
  • https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=268519
Security Issues

There is no know security issue.

Non-Code Aspects

Documentation

 

  • Visualization SDK includes documentation for users and developers.
  • APIs have Javadoc.
  • Extension points have a reference document.

Publication

 

Several documents have been published on the ACTF documentation page.

http://www.eclipse.org/actf/docs/

Internationalization

ACTF Visualization part has been designed with localization in mind and will keep internationalization in mind as we go forward.

  • UI messages are externalized
  • Now it supports English, Japanese and Chinese (partially). 
Usability Details

User Interface

  • ACTF Visualization part has been designed with Eclipse User Interface Guidelines in mind.
  • UI Checklist is not firm yet, but will be updated in the future release

Example tools

  • Several kinds of exemplary tools are available
    • Accessibility visualization/evaluation tools: aDesigner, miChecker
    • Sample implementation of HTML evaluation tool: HTML Checker
    • Sample implementation of visualization functions: SimpleVisualizer
    • Audio Description editor for internet movies: EASEL (Eclipse ACTF Script Editor Lite)
    • etc.
End of Life

There are no features that are designated for end-of-life in this release.

Standards

Related standards

  • ACTF requires Java 1.5 or later and Eclipse 3.6 or later
  • W3C HTML 4.01 recommendation (and older recommendations 3.2, 4.0)
    • HTML model component
  • OASIS Open Document Format v1.1
    • ODF model component
Communities
  • Bugzilla is used by committers and community members, e.g., exemplary tool users, developers, etc.
  • ML is used to discuss project plans, etc..
  • Newsgroup is not much used yet, but is monitored by subscribed committers.

 

Community outreach

  • Improve/update documentation and examples
  • Some new consumer were started to develop their own accessibility tools/services on top of ACTF. ACTF examples that introduces how to use ACTF functions helped them in early phase.
This release is part of Luna