[opencms-dev] Status of OpenCms accessibility

[Alessandro Magnolo]

Dear All,
and dear Alkacon representatives in particular,

I wrote many times about the need of assuring the accessibility of
content generated by the CMS users (authors). This is especially true
for Italy, where accessibility is a law requirement for public
administration sites, and will soon be for all EU countries.

In my opinion OpenCms is a great tool for generating
standard-compliant websites, especially since the introduction of
FCKEditor as the default editor (it can produce XHTML Strict code if
used in Firefox - not in IE, unfortunately).

The next step would be to improve the back-end interface
accessibility. I know this is a very hard task, but it could start by
creating a separate accessible interface, to be used initially for the
simplest tasks, and then growing to become a complete alternative (if
not "the" interface).
For example, a first release of the "accessible backend" could show
the users the list of files in the VFS and allow them to edit and
publish content (leaving more complex administrative tasks, like user
management, to the improved/standard interface).
What do you think about this? What is your experience? Have you
perceived an interest in backend accessibility in the community of
OpenCms users?


Another step, more oriented towards front-end accessibility, would be
the integration of an editor explicitly designed with accessibility in
mind (this means not only valid code, but also checks for
accessibility tags and attributes enforced in the editor).
The only one I know is XStandard, that recently announced the
availability of a freely distributable version of the editor for open
source CMS developers.
I attach part of their press release at the end of this message.


Again, I'd like to know if this is of interest to the community, and
what are Alkacon plans for accessibility, in particular regarding
their stance on accessibility laws for EU countries.

Best regards,
Alessandro Magnolo

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XStandard is the leading standards-compliant plug-in WYSIWYG editor
for Windows desktop applications and browser-based content management
systems (IE/Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape).

The editor generates clean XHTML Strict or 1.1, uses CSS for
formatting, and ensures the clean separation of content from
presentation. Markup generated by XStandard meets the most demanding
accessibility requirements. The editor's cool features include drag &
drop file upload, spell checking and an image library that integrates
tightly with your CMS.

We are making XStandard Lite with some Pro features available to
established vendors of open source CMS who wish to offer XStandard as
an optional (freeware) editor in their applications.
Details of the program can be found at
http://www.xstandard.com/xstandard-lite-for-partner-cms/
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