Based on Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act, Host On-Demand offers new accessibility features in the Host On-Demand end-user client to help users who have physical disabilities, such as restricted mobility or limited vision. Features include keyboard equivalents for all actions (mouseless operation), support for display system settings for size, font, and color for user interface controls, enhanced color remapping, and descriptive text for selected graphics. Users who want to take advantage of accessibility features must have Java 1.4, which is a specific version of the Java 2 platform. These features are available on the Windows platform.
Administrators who need to deploy accessible Host On-Demand panels to users should select Java 2 or Auto Detect as the Client Java Type in the Deployment Wizard on the Additional Options window.
If you are installing the Host On-Demand server using a screen reader application, use the interactive runtime console mode wizard instead of the Host On-Demand installation wizard. To invoke the console mode wizard, take the following steps:
hodinstallwin.exe -accessibility or hodinstallwin_console.exe -accessibility. |
Some assistive technologies, such as the JAWS screen reader, are installed in the system's Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Users who need this assistive technology to work with the Deployment Wizard should be aware that the Deployment Wizard uses the JRE installed with Host On-Demand, not the system's JRE. Administrators will need to copy certain files in the assistive technology's JRE into Host On-Demand's JRE in order to allow the assistive technology to work with the Deployment Wizard. Refer to the assistive technology's documentation for details about which files need to be modified. |
Accessibility features include the following:
Support for system display settings (font, font size, and color)
Textual Operator Information Area (OIA)
Keyboard equivalents for GUI panel interaction
Numerical values for color remapping
Descriptive text for selected graphics
Name and description for all interface components
Microsoft Windows operating systems provide the capability to configure system color, fonts, font sizes, and high contrast settings. Host On-Demand, including the logon panel, session properties panels, the Host On-Demand desktop, as well as client panels, inherits these settings by default. The host session's green screen, however, does not inherit these settings since it is controlled from within the Host On-Demand application. To change the settings on the host session green screen, use the session's Color Remap option and the font options on the Screen option of session properties.
You can change the system settings for color, fonts, font sizes, and high contrast of the Host On-Demand windows from the Control Panel on Windows operating systems. For example, to change high contrast settings using Windows 2000, open the Control Panel, double click the Accessibility Options icon, and open the Display tab. To change color, fonts, and font sizes, open the Control Panel, double click the Display icon, open the Appearance tab, and use the Item drop-down menu to change your system settings.
Host On-Demand inherits color, font, and font size settings from the following items:
The OIA is the area at the bottom of the host session screen where session indicators and messages appear. Session indicators show information about the workstation, host system, and connectivity. For a list of session indicators, refer to Understanding the OIA in the Host On-Demand Troubleshooting Guide.
Since a screen reader cannot interpret the graphical symbols used on a session's OIA, Host On-Demand now offers you the option to display a textual OIA. The textual OIA interprets the graphical symbols and displays them as text that a screen reader can interpret and read. It is designed so that you can tab (using Ctrl+Tab) to the textual OIA field from the green screen without erasing the memory location of the cursor position. Shift+Tab returns focus from the textual OIA back to cursor position in the host session. For example, if you want to know your current cursor position on the green screen and diagnose possible problems with the session, you can simply tab to the textual OIA, and a screen reader will read the text that is located in the texual OIA field. Once you are ready to return to the green screen, you can simply press Shift+Tab to return to the session.
The textual OIA is a series of rows that contain strings of text. You can navigate in the textual OIA by using the up and down arrows on the keyboard. When you log on to a session, the initial rows of text describe the default values of the OIA fields for that session. As you perform actions on the screen and move the cursor, the textual OIA updates the sentences to describe the current activity on the screen. The textual OIA represents the current status of the OIA, not a running history of the OIA.
The textual OIA is located just below the graphical OIA on the session screen and can be enabled from the following three locations:
When users select to display the textual OIA in the View menu, the option remains selected even after users close and restart the session. Users can select to view both the graphical OIA and the texual OIA, either the textual OIA or the graphical OIA, or neither the graphical OIA nor the textual OIA.
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In Virtual Terminal (VT) sessions, users can add sentences to the textual OIA. Since Host On-Demand has no control over what users add, screen readers may or may not be able to read the these sentences. |
On host session screens, you can use keys or key combinations to perform operations that you can perform using the mouse. Beginning with Host On-Demand Version 8, the following keyboard equivalents are available:
All Host On-Demand sessions
- Put focus on a session icon in the configured sessions window or a session name in the active sessions list and press Shift+F10 to open the session menu window. This window allows you to start, duplicate, copy, delete, paste, and export the session, set a bookmark, and view the session properties. Use the arrow keys to navigate through the session menu window, and press Esc to close the window.
An item such as a checkbox, icon, or file name has focus when it is the current position when tabbing or navigating through a window. On Windows platforms, items with focus are surrounded by a box. - Use the Tab key to navigate forward, Shift+Tab to navigate backward, and the arrow keys to navigate directionally. Ctrl+Tab takes you to the next section on the screen that allows you to tab through the options.
- Use the Enter key or space bar to expand drop-down menus such as the status bar history at the bottom of the session window.
- Use the Alt key combined with the down arrow key to open drop-down menus, the arrow keys to navigate through them, the Enter key to make a selection and close them, and the Esc key to close them without making a selection.
- Use the space bar to select radio buttons.
- Use the arrow keys to navigate through tree structure options, such as the items in the left panel of the Session Properties window.
FTP session
- In the Actions menu, select Sort Local Files or Sort Host Files to sort table headers by name, size, date, or attributes. The first time you sort local or host files, Host On-Demand sorts the files in acsending order. To sort the file in descending order, repeat selecting either option in the Actions menu.
- Put focus on a subdirectory and press Enter to do the following:
- open a subdirectory and its parent directory
- display the files in the subdirectory
- append the subdirectory in the directory text field to display the full path
- Highlight a subdirectory and press Shift+F10 to open a window that allows you to do the following:
- send the subdirectory to the host
- delete or rename the subdirectory
- add the subdirectory to the current transfer list or create a new directory
For a more comprehensive list of Host On-Demand keyboard equivalents, refer to Default Keyboard Mapping.
The following table contains some common Windows keyboard equivalents supported by Host On-Demand.
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Because keys and key combinations can be remapped using the Keyboard Remap function, shortcuts might be different than what is listed in the following table. |
| Function | Keyboard equivalent |
|---|---|
| JumpNext | Ctrl+J |
| Print Screen | Ctrl+P |
| Exit | Ctrl+Q |
| Cut | Ctrl+X |
| Copy | Ctrl+C |
| Paste | Ctrl+V |
| Select All | Ctrl+A |
| Send File to Host | Ctrl+S |
| Receive File from Host | Ctrl+R |
| Play Macro | Ctrl+M |
| Run Applet | Ctrl+U |
| Index | Ctrl+H |
Operating systems include standard shortcut keys as aids to accessibility. This documentation does not address operating system-specific accessibility features. Consult your operating system's documentation for more information about these features.
Host On-Demand now provides a Custom Color window that provides a variety of color selections capable of producing a range of contrast levels. This window allows you to select custom colors based on their numerical values for hue/saturation/brightness values and red/green/blue values. For more information about the Custom Color window, refer to Custom Colors.
Graphics and images that communicate meaningful information, such as links, headers, and banners, are available in text form for users who have impaired vision. Users simply position their mouse cursors over these graphics and images to display the descriptive text. For example, in this online help file, the Information Center graphic in the top right corner is coded with the descriptive text "Information Center."
Other graphics and images that simply enhance the interface do not provide text descriptions.
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Netscape 6 does not display descriptive text when the mouse cursor is positioned over graphics. Use View > Page Info > Images to see descriptive (alternate) text. |
Host On-Demand now offers names and descriptions for client graphical user interface (GUI) components, such as the status bar, dialog boxes, buttons, and text fields. These names and descriptions are not visible on the product GUI, but you can access them using assistive tools, such as a screen reader.