Dev4Press plugins Accessibility

All latest version of our plugins and xScape framework include new options for controlling plugins interface accessibility. Some of controls on the user interface are enhanced with jQuery plugins for better layout and visual experience and to add controls that HTML doesn’t have.

Checkboxes and radioboxes, with all Dev4Press plugins, are enhanced using jQuery. Problem with default HTML elements can be that they are not easy to position and control. jQuery helps with that, and make controls look pretty. Multi select dropdown control doesn’t exists in HTML, so it’s much better to replace existing multi select control with jQuery powered dropdown.

But, controls looking pretty is not exactly always accessibility friendly and they don’t matter much to blind users. They usually use a screen reader that interprets HTML controls. But, some of the enhanced elements we have are hiding actual elements making it impossible for screen reader to find them. Same thing happens with tabs and many other elements, but in case of most jQueryUI powered controls, they have built-in accessibility support. For the rest of the controls (checkboxes/radioboxes/multi dropdown), there is an option to disable them.

Accessibility Control

Each plugin, on the settings page got a new tab called Accessibility with one option used to disable enhancements. If anyone finds some more controls that have similar accessibility problem, I will add them to the enhancement control. As for xScape powered themes, same option is added in 1.6 version that will be available in the next couple of days.