[Athen] Seeking a public Canvas page with the rich text editor

Deborah Armstrong armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu
Thu Jan 7 10:23:28 PST 2021


I was talking to Freedom Scientific about a small glitch JAWS has when you are working with the rich text editor in Canvas. Actually, there are several glitches and it happens on any page with this same editor control.

But to test, they need something that isn't hidden behind a password. So often, when I find a problem, I can only demonstrate on campus pages behind a password!

Does anyone know of a public page I can send them? I'm either looking for one in Canvas or one in any other web application that uses the same rich edit control.

Below are the details of the glitches I found. The workaround is to keep refreshing the OSM and switching focus away and back, but that doesn't always work.


1) When you try to go in to forms mode, you are not positioned in the rich text edit field, even though JAWS says "edit".


2) When you try to pull up the menu with Alt-f9 or the toolbar with Alt-f10, you get the browser's menu bar instead, or nothing happens. If outside of the web app, those keystrokes do not pull up the browser's menu bar. Sighted people can click on the three dots, but screen reader users are stuck with these keystrokes.


3) When you are typing text, JAWS says "misspelled" when a word isn't recognized even if you have "detect spelling errors" toggled off. If you are typing proper names, filenames or foreign languages, it's especially annoying.


4) If multiple edit fields are on the same page (such as in a quiz) it's difficult to position to the correct one; JAWS often opens the wrong one and puts you in to application mode. You type in your response, return to virtual cursor mode and then realize you've entered it in the wrong edit field. This happens regardless of whether forms mode is set to manual, semi-auto or auto. And when you are in application mode, you cannot read the field's prompt so you just have to hope you are focused in the correct field.


5) When you are arrowing in a rich edit field with applications mode turned on, JAWS sometimes doesn't properly read the line you are actually focused on. This behavior is random; I have not found a pattern. If you are inserting items, such as a table, a video or a picture, you often can't tell exactly where it landed.



6) If you want application mode to turn on, it sometimes refuses to do so, even if JAWS shows you focused on the application. When you try to return to virtual cursor mode, the PC cursor activates and you cannot get the virtual cursor to re-engage.

I see some of these problems with NVDA as well, but NVDA is so verbose on these kinds of pages with multiple rich text editor web apps, it's frustrating to use. NVDA also is less reliable about reading by unit inside a web application.

But if I find a public page, I'll certainly post a bug report for NVDA too.

--Debee

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