2 Administration Console Accessibility

This chapter describes WebLogic Server Administration Console accessibility.

This chapter includes the following sections:

• Overview

• Accessibility Features

• Using Assistive Technology

• Known Issues

Overview

Currently a variety of accessibility features are available in the WebLogic Server Administration Console and its associated online help. The application itself provides the appropriate information to ensure pages can be rendered in assistive technology. Accessibility features provided by the Web browser lets you control of the application with the keyboard and customize of the look-and-feel of the application.

Oracle is dedicated to providing high quality information technology that is accessible to people with disabilities. In particular, Oracle is committed to ensuring full compliance with the Section 508 accessibility standards. To this end, Oracle has undertaken a substantial project to ensure the accessibility of Oracle WebLogic Server. Oracle is implementing these enhancements and will continue to address all accessibility issues that come to its attention. For information about Oracle accessibility policies and support, see Oracle's Accessibility Program at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/index.html.

Accessibility Features

The Administration Console has the following accessibility features.

Keyboard Access

All functions of the WebLogic Server Administration Console are accessible and usable from the keyboard. The application supports the standard keyboard controls found in Web browsers and does not interfere with the operating system standard keyboard controls.

Customizable Appearance

The WebLogic Server Administration Console supports your ability to define and use custom style sheets. This allows you to control the manner in which the application appears in the browser. You can use your own custom style sheets or simply revert the page to default formatting using the appropriate browser commands.

Using Assistive Technology

Oracle provides certain recommended configuration options for industry leading assistive technologies. These configuration options ensure that the accessibility enhancements present in the application are available to the assistive technology user. For more information, see Oracle's Accessibility Program at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/index.html.

Make sure your screen reader is configured to read the title attribute of links.

Note:

The screen readers were tested on the Administration Console using Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.

Known Issues

The WebLogic Server Administration Console currently exhibits several known issues relating to 508 compliance. The issues are described in more detail below.

Keyboard Accessibility

Keyboard accessibility is limited in the following ways:

1. The Administration Console uses two kinds of tree controls, which use different keyboard navigation.

   • The diagnostics Monitoring Dashboard and the diagnostics Request Performance page use tree controls with enhanced keyboard navigation using the arrow keys.

   • Other tree controls are navigated using the Tab and Enter keys.

2. Some editable property values in the outbound connection pool of an installed RAR application are not keyboard accessible. However, JAWS users can access these fields by using table navigation keys.

Screen Reader

The screen reader's effectiveness is limited in the following ways:

1. The diagnostics Monitoring Dashboard is not fully accessible by the screen reader.

2. A number of buttons in the Administration Console behave as menus, for example the Suspend and Shutdown buttons on the Summary of Servers > Control page. When pressed, these buttons open a list of commands. JAWS recognizes the buttons only as buttons; it cannot read the commands on the menus.

3. The screen reader skips some images or reads them incorrectly:

   • 
     

     The reader does not always read the "Restart maybe required" image, which is placed next to configuration options that may require restarting the server.

   • 
     

     The reader announces the Record button, in the toolbar region at the top of the right pane of the Console, as "start recording" even when its status has changed to "stop recording."

   • The reader does not read some images representing file types.

4. The reader sometimes does not read the message "Errors must be corrected before proceeding" that is displayed at the top of a page when a user tries to save invalid entries. However, the reader does correctly read the specific error message returned at the point of the error.

5. The screen reader does not announce that script recording has begun when a user initiates the recording by clicking the Record button.

6. The screen reader sometimes unexpectedly jumps to the top of the page, for example:

   • When the user continues tabbing through the controls in the chooser control list after reading several items.

   • When the user clicks on a tree view item in the Help viewer.

7. Unexpected information is read by the screen reader for Asynchronous tasks' Begin Time and End Time on the Summary of Asynchronous Tasks page.

Running with High Contrast and Text Magnification

Running the Administration Console while using high contrast or text magnification can lead to the following problems in some browsers:

1. When using the Microsoft Windows High Contrast mode, some images and navigation controls are not displayed or are distorted.

2. When running with text magnification some text may be overlapped or difficult to read.