As an accessibility evangelist and someone from an open source background who fell head first into this new world of SharePoint and.NET programming I can tell you that this task is not for the faint-hearted. The effort required to make MOSS even remotely accessible (and I’m not just talking priority 1 and 2 checkpoints) is gargantuan.
If it was up to me I would have just used a CMS that was accessible OOTB. But it’s not. ☺ To add to all the advice already given, the most future-proof steps required to make your WCM sites accessible include: - Specify an XHTML loose doctype in your custom master. Caveats: o You can’t use a strict doctype without losing functionality (because non-compliant code will not render as expected, if at all). o You can’t specify a doctype in your system master without losing valuable functionality (Datasheet View and Image Library functions notwithstanding). - Rewrite all the layout code found in masters and layouts to be compliant. This is about the best start you’ve got. This includes: o Using custom CSS wherever possible. Delete built-in style calls and let your base HTML selector styles do the work. o Use custom ID selectors for layout to overwrite anything rendered by core.css. This also allows you to add all your skip link anchors and makes using a style switcher that much simpler. o Go as far as to remove the csslink tag in your master page if you’re really game and see what happens. I managed to reduce all native SharePoint CSS to 101 lines and call it last as an override. - Don’t use the MS Minimal Master. It fails to include useful (if not essential) placeholders. - Use Data Form Web Parts wherever you can. o Output for these can be controlled with XSL. o They don’t have to live within Web Part Zones. - Visit Heather Solomon’s site. I don’t approve of everything she says or does (much of it is dated and overwrought) but her minimal master and CSS cheat sheets can be invaluable. - Develop in FireFox first. FireBug is your new best friend. Then test in IE, use the Developer’s Toolbar, and add any ‘fixes’ to your CSS override. - Having gone to all this trouble the last thing you need is for your content editors to spoil all your hard work by pasting content from Word! o Get Telerik or a similarly standards-compliant editor. o Provide a Writing For The Web content editor’s guide which includes simple steps on producing nice, clean, legible copy. <rant> Even after employing all the recommendations made here, at the end of the day you still have to accept certain limitations and realities. We have managed to come out of this exercise with accessible master pages (and some layout pages) but there is little control over content that is rendered at run-time. Everything I’ve found either re-writes the rendered code after the fact or just helps to bloat it in another way. Much of the controls that make up a page use seriously flawed legacy code. If only all web parts included the XSL editor! Last time I looked the AKS did little more than add summary="layout" and slightly deplete the concentric ring of nested tables that make up a typical page. And while the Telerik editor _produces_ compliant code, it’s my understanding that it is still rewritten at page load by the ASP render class. Best piece of advice? Just keep hammering MS on the SharePoint forums and hope that future versions will one day get there. I use a number of aliases. ;) </rant> Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Williamson Sent: Sunday, 16 November 2008 6:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] SharePoint 2007 Accessibility? We are going through this right now. My best advice is to use sharepoint as an infrastructure tool (eg for the "back end" of publishing/etc) and to rewrite everything that the PUBLIC touches. As below: -redo menu controls -redo any web parts you want to use (content query, etc) -base your master on minimal and build up from there It's a shame MS doesn't take accessibility seriously with asp.net<http://asp.net> full stop, and that unfortunately makes SharePoint a victim. On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 12:12 AM, Clayton James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: I haven't used the Accessibility kit (aks) but I have heard Andrew Connell discuss this kit a sample box, not a turn key solution. This would be the first place I would investigate. It provides a number of samples/examples in creating accessible web parts, master pages, sites definitions, custom controls, etc... Lots of OOTB controls render out tables and break XHTML compliant guidelines. The accessibility kit overcomes this process by implementing control adapters (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/67276kc5.aspx) so you can manage the html output. http://markharrison.co.uk/blog/2008/03/aks-v2-accessibility-kit-for-sharepoint.htm http://www.asp.net/cssadapters/ WebPartZones are a real problem in that also render out tables. The aks didn't provide a solution to this so the following post might be helpful. http://blog.sharepoint.ch/2007/12/webpartzone-adapter.html The MOSS OOTB editor still doesn't produce XHTML compliant markup so you will need to use Telerik's editor or HiSoftware's (they built aks) Accessible Rich Text Editor. They have a free version which has the same functionality as the OOTB editor but also supports multiple browsers and accessibility. http://www.telerik.com/community/free-products.aspx - Download here You may not even want to download core.js in your WCM Internet site. This is because you may not ever edit content directly on your production site. You may edit content on your staging farm which is on an internal network that publishes content to your production farm in a external DMZ network. If this is the case then you don't need to include core.js in your production farm. Funny thing is when I tried to search on codeplex for the aks nothing displayed...it used to be there??? Maybe you can only download it now from HiSoftware http://aks.hisoftware.com/index.html Cheers Clayton From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] On Behalf Of Tommy Segoro Sent: Saturday, 15 November 2008 12:34 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] SharePoint 2007 Accessibility? And also web-parts never produce XHTML validated source. With WCM though you have the option to hide CORE.JS for performance improvement but as soon as you hide CORE.JS, all Sharepoint OOTB controls that require javascript (eg. Web-parts, site actions menu) won't work. The work around for this is to make CORE.JS available on Edit mode (ie. When admin edits the page). You can do some smarts there using EditModePanel. Tommy Segoro Sharepoint Specialist Practice Lead [cid:[email protected]] L7 Solutions Pty Ltd www.L7.com.au<http://www.L7.com.au> T: +61 8 9221 7744 F: +61 8 9221 8199 M: +61 404 457 754 Ground Floor 256 Adelaide Terrace Perth WA 6000 PO Box 3044 Adelaide Terrace WA 6832 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] On Behalf Of Sharepoint Consultant Sent: Friday, 14 November 2008 11:20 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [OzMOSS] SharePoint 2007 Accessibility? Hi Guys, Does anyone on here have any experience with SharePoint accessibilty? I have found the following resources which are quite useful, but would anyone like to share any issues in particular you have encountered? Also, what is people's opinions regarding the Accessibility Toolkit for SharePoint? http://planetmoss.blogspot.com/2007/09/sharepoint-accessibility.html http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms916821.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/04/24/582506.aspx?harrison Thanks heaps. ------------------------------------------------------------------- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com<http://mailenable.com> ------------------------------------------------------------------- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com<http://mailenable.com> No virus found in this incoming message. 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