MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING FLASH Use Manual page 358

The Windows ActiveX (Internet Explorer plug-in) version of Flash Player 6 supports MSAA, but
the Windows Netscape and Windows stand-alone players do not.
Caution: MSAA is currently not supported in the opaque windowless and transparent windowless
modes. (These modes are options in the HTML Publish Settings panel, available for use with the
Windows version of Internet Explorer 4.0 or later, with the Flash ActiveX control.) If you need your
Flash content to be accessible to screen readers, avoid using these modes.
Flash Player makes information about the following types of accessibility objects available to
screen readers using MSAA. To understand how to enter accessible information for each object,
see "Using Flash to enter accessibility information for screen readers" on page
Dynamic or static text
MSAA convention, the name is equal to the contents of the text string. A text object can also have
an associated description string. Flash uses the static or dynamic text immediately above or to the
left of an input text field as a label for that field.
Note: Any text that is a label is not passed to a screen reader. Instead, the content of that text is used
as the name of the object that it labels. Labels are never assigned to buttons or text fields that have
author-supplied names.
Input text fields
keyboard shortcut string. As with dynamic text, an input text object's name can come from a text
object that is above or to the left of it.
Buttons A button object has a state (pressed or not pressed), supports a programmatic default
action that causes the button to depress momentarily, and can optionally have a name, a
description string, and a keyboard shortcut string. As with text input fields, for buttons, Flash
uses any text entirely inside a button as a label for that button.
Note: For accessibility purposes, movie clips used as buttons with button event handlers such as
are considered buttons—not movie clips—by Flash Player.
onPress
Components
information, see
ActionScript" on page
Movie clips Movie clips are exposed to screen readers as graphic objects when they do not
contain any other accessible objects, or when the Accessibility panel is used to provide a name or
a description for a movie clip. When a movie clip contains other accessible objects, the clip itself is
ignored, and the objects inside it are made available to screen readers.
Note: All Flash Video objects are treated as simple movie clips.
Basic accessibility support in Flash Player
Flash Player provides some basic accessibility support for all Flash documents, whether or not
they are designed using the accessibility features found in the Flash authoring tool. This generic
support for documents that do not use any accessibility features includes the following:
Dynamic or static text
no description.
358 Chapter 17: Creating Accessible Content
The principal property of a text object is its name. To comply with
An input text object has a value, an optional name, a description string, and a
Flash UI components provide special accessibility implementation. For more
"Using accessible components" on page 369
369.
Text is transferred to the screen reader program as a name, but with
359.
and "Creating accessibility with