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PDE form engine currently renders text without showing the carret. These causes two problems: 1) Even though form engine is capable of gaining focus, it does not show it in any way. 2) Scrolling is possible using the keyboard but no carret makes it impossible for tools like JAWS to tell what line of text is current. I am not sure if 2) should be addressed using carret or if line of text even makes sense in the context of a read-only, wrapped text (Web browsers like IE5 do not show carret in plain text pages).
Not in 2.0
Please see IBM accessibility guidelines 2.1 (visual focus) and 2.4 (access to all elements and tips) at http://w3.austin.ibm.com/~snsinfo/softwarecheck.html. If there is no way to read the contents of a page or dialog without the mouse this does not pass the IBM guidelines.
PDE form engine can accept focus and when in focus, will catch arrow and page up/page down keys to move the scroll composite. The only thing PDE will not do is show carret because it we do not offer any editing and selecting. Not showing the caret is not the same as not allowing keyboard support for scrolling the content.
Confirmed that the current implemention no longer breaks the 2.4 rule (ability to access text) as the scroll bars work. 2.1 still fails as their is no visual focus and tools like JAWS need to use special functions to read the text as if it were a Label.
I have just added Accessibility (JAWS) support for FormEngine. However, I don't know how to provide focus indication (without using the carret).
Confirmed that JAWS can read the first 3 or 4 lines of the text now when tabbing through. It is not reading the entire thng but I think that this is a JAWS feature - not anything to do with PDE. We do not get a visual focus indicator still but the fact that assistive technologies can now read this should make it pass an accessibility test - as these are essentially scrollable labels rather than entry fields.
