Yahoo! Flash (R) Blog

Astra Stimulus Package

We’re filing late this year but we were determined to get this thing in before midnight. We thought about asking for an extension, but decided the paperwork was too complicated. So here we go, crossing our fingers…

Astra 1.4 is now ready for direct deposit into your Flash or Flex applications.

New this season is a component called Form which will help with those gathering and validating data in Flash. Also notable to mention is that most of Astra is now accessible. We’ve added a section to each component on developer.yahoo.com/flash speaking directly to those trying to get components to work with screen readers. There are also, as always, some nice bug fixes and new features. The full list follows:

Flash

• New Form component and form data manager utility
• Carousel:
  • enhanced keyboard navigation
  • added accessibility
  • fixed bug: null reference error when setting multiple data providers
• Charts:
  • allow for negative values in stacked bar and column charts.
  • fixed bug in stacked bar and column charts in which markers were sized incorrectly for multiple series.
  • fixed bug in TimeAxis in which majorUnit was not being calculated correctly.
  • fixed bug in TimeAxis in which minorUnit was not being calculated.
  • fixed bug in which hideOverlappingLabels style did not work on the y-axis
  • refactored origin axes, TimeAxis and NumericAxis, to allow for factoring in the label size when calculating a majorUnit.
  • added option to CategoryAxis to allow for a more systematic dropping of labels when there is not enough space for all categories on the axis.
  • fixed bug in which null values break line series.
  • fixed bug in NumericAxis in which external data was not being casted as a Number.
  • allow option for rotating text when fonts are not embedded.
  • fixed bug in which Cartesian Charts, were not being updated when the length of the dataSource was different.
  • added enhanced styling of series by allowing the specification of fill, border and line color and alpha styles.
  • added option of styling a highlighted zero gridline when the zero is beyond the origin of a NumericAxis.
• Menu:
  • enhanced keyboard navigation
  • fixed bug in labelField property
  • added support for non-XML data providers
  • added beta accessibility implementation
  • fixed bug where focusing out would not close menus
• MenuBar:
  • enhanced keyboard navigation
  • added beta accessibility implementation
  • added support for non-XML data providers
  • added labelField property
  • added support for disabled menu bar items
• Tree:
  • Fixed out-of-bounds index error that appeared under certain conditions.
  • improved keyboard navigation
  • added events for opening and closing of nodes
  • added accessibility implementation
  • added TreeEvent
• AlertManager:
  • fixed issue with keyboard focus on disabled controls
  • made some properties publicly accessible
  • added beta accessibility implementation
• AudioPlayback:
  • enhanced keyboard navigation – added keyboard support for volume control
  • made some properties publicly accessible
  • added accessibility implementations for subcontrols (volume, current track)

Flex

• AutoCompleteManager:
  • Added ability to retrieve specific popup instances and control them
  • Enhanced algorithm for target resizing and moving
• IPv4AddressInput, TimeInput, TimeStepper, DropdownColorPicker:
  • Added accessibility implementation

Utils

• Improved performance of layout for very large containers

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Creating Accessible Components in Flash and Flex (Part 2)

In this article, I’ll go over the steps needed to enable accessibility for a custom component. While it takes a bit of getting used to, I think you’ll find that enabling accessibility for your components is not only beneficial to the many users who would like to interact with your component, but helps you to fine-tune and further enhance your components in general. To enable use with screen readers, follow these three (simple?) steps:

1. Determine object role
2. Create the Accessibility Implementation class for component
3. Add accessibility tie-ins to component class
   a) Create a placeholder for the static createAccessibilityImplementation() method
   b) Override initializeAccessibility() method
   c) (Flex only) Add AccessibilityClass metadata

Continue reading Creating Accessible Components in Flash and Flex (Part 2)…

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