Worldspace FireEyes F.A.Q.

FireEyes Extension Compatibility

The tables below outline our support for the various combinations of Operating Systems and Browsers. In the table FireEyes OK shows we have no outstanding issues with FireEyes. Focus rules OK is related to the Focus test available in FireEyes. Certain versions of FireFox do not support this feature.

Windows XP, Vista, 7

Mac OS X 10.5 — 10.6.8

Mac OS X 10.7

Note that OS X 10.7 does NOT ship with Java installed, but will automatically download and install a Java runtime the first time it’s needed. Steps to install:

1. Run a Java app to get Java installed. Simplest procedure: open a Terminal.app window and run the command: ‘java’. Alternate procedure: get started from this web page: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1421

2. After this is complete, open the Java Preferences app (/Applications/Utilities/)

3. By default, “Enable applet plug-in and Web Start applications” is unchecked – but it must be checked for FireEyes to run!

Important information for Mac OS X users

If you are using a Mac OS X machine, Apple introduced a bug in the 3.6.17 build of Firefox that causes FireEyes to fail to initialize correctly. Either use Firefox 4, or download the 3.6.16 version of Firefox and set your update settings to not update Firefox automatically (Firefox->Preferences->Advanced->Update).

1. Release and Installation

   Do I need an account for the cloud service?

   Yes. Unlike beta 1, 2 and 3, beta 4 requires an account on the cloud service and also requires you to enter your login information under the “Accounts” tab in order for the product to work correctly. This is due to certain content and features being loaded dynamically from the service. Failure to provide this information will cause the product to not work correctly.

   What is the current release status of Worldspace FireEyes?

   Worldspace FireEyes is currently in beta 4 release status. We plan to have multiple beta releases prior to the first production release. Worldspace Enterprise customers can get access to functionality that is not available in the free version of the product.

   Can we use the product for real projects?

   Yes. The designation of beta is being used because some of the desired features have not yet been implemented and because we anticipate that issues will be discovered by the community that we did not test-for in our in-house testing.

   Is Worldspace FireEyes accessible?

   Yes it is fully accessible, but this requires Firebug’s accessibility enhancements option to be enabled.

   How do I enable Firebug’s accessibility enhancements?

   Firebug contains various accessibility enhancements that improve its keyboard accessibility, but these are turned off by default. To determine whether accessibility enhancements are turned on, open the Firefox menu bar, under the Tools menu, navigate to Firebug, then Options. If ‘Enable Accessibility Enhancements’ is checked, then the enhancements are active. The Firebug Wiki contains a description of the accessibility enhancements in Firebug, and how they can be used and customized. Worldspace FireEyes will ensure that Firebug is running with these accessibility enhancements turned on, but we recommend that users of AT set this option themselves for the best possible first-run experience, since they will need to navigate to the Worldspace FireEyes tab within Firebug in order to get started with the software.

   What accesskeys are provided by Worldspace FireEyes?

   Firefox does not allow the discovery of accesskeys within the HTML ui of an extension in the same way that it allows the discovery of these within the browser window. The following accesskeys are available, even though they may not be discoverable by AT:

   • 0: ‘Current Document’ tab, switched to and focused
   • 1 through 9: report headings in ‘Current Document’ tab, in reverse chronological order
   • L: Last tab available, switched to and focused

   The accelerator keys used for accesskeys in Worldspace FireEyes do not reflect the user-configurable options that may have been set in the Firefox browser. On Windows computers, the accelerator key will ALWAYS be the Alt key. On Mac OS computers, the accelerator key will ALWAYS be the Control key.

   What keyboard shortcuts are provided by Worldspace FireEyes?

   Alt+F12: toggle Firebug Worldspace FireEyes. If Firebug is running attached to the browser window (the default mode), this shortcut will toggle the Firebug panel, and ensure that Worldspace FireEyes is focused whenever Firebug is activated. If Firebug is running in a detached window, this shortcut will bring the Firebug window into the foreground, and ensure that Worldspace FireEyes is focused.

   What are the software dependencies for Worldspace FireEyes?

   Worldspace FireEyes requires Firefox 3.5.3 thru 4.0.x and Firebug 1.5.3 thru 1.7.x. It also requires Java 1.5 or higher to be installed and enabled in the browser.IMPORTANT: at this time, FireEyes does not support Firefox 3.6.17 on Mac OS X due to a bug introduced by this version of Firefox. Please use version 3.6.16 on Mac OS X.

   If the wrong version of Firebug is installed what will happen?

   If the version of Firebug is earlier than 1.5.3, then the Worldspace FireEyes add-on will be displayed as “dependencies required” in the Firefox add-ons list. The Worldspace FireEyes user interface will not appear inside the Firebug plugin.

   If Java is not enabled correctly, what will happen?

   If Java is not enabled, or if the wrong version of Java is installed, then the initialization of Worldspace FireEyes will fail and this will cause the initialization of Firebug to fail. The result of this is that the Firebug user interface will not display correctly and Firebug will not be usable. This can be corrected by installing and/or enabling the correct Java plugin version. Worldspace FireEyes will display a message when it cannot initialize its Java components correctly, allowing you to identify when this situation exists.

   What happens if I cannot install the correct Java version?

   If you cannot install or enable the correct Java version and your IT administrators are not able to do this on your behalf, then you should uninstall Worldspace FireEyes so that you can continue to use Firebug.

   Is there a version of Worldspace FireEyes for Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari?

   Yes, if you login to the cloud service with Safari, you will be able to install and download the FireEyes lite version for Safari. An IE version of the product is currently only available to Enterprise Worldspace customers.

   What operating systems has Worldspace FireEyes been tested on?

   Worldspace FireEyes has been tested on Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, Windows XP and Windows 7. It should work on any operating system on which Firefox and Firebug work, and where a Java plugin or runtime environment for Firefox is available. Please report issues that you encounter on other platforms.

2. Features

   Which standards does Worldspace FireEyes support?

   Worldspace FireEyes currently supports WCAG 1 (Priorities 1, 2 and 3), WCAG 2 (levels A and AA), section 508 and some dynamic rules that test for WAI-ARIA compliance.

   Does Worldspace FireEyes have support for static pages?

   Yes. Worldspace FireEyes evaluates both static and dynamic web sites and applications. It does the analysis by monitoring all of the browser events including the initial “load” event. If you want to control the points at which the analysis is done, you can turn off the “Automatic” analysis and use the “Now” button to analyze static pages.

   Does Worldspace FireEyes support analyzing multiple pages or a whole site?

   Yes. When you have Automatic analysis turned on, then every page you visit will be analyzed and the results will be accumulated in the “Report” tab. The “Current Document” tab will only display the results for the page you are currently viewing in the browser.

   Can you export the results of an analysis?

   Yes. If you upload the analysis issues to the Worldspace FireEyes server, then the issues can be exported in either Excel or Comma Separated Variable format from the issues page of the project.

   Can Worldspace FireEyes support the remediation of static issues?

   Yes. By editing the content of the page using the Firebug “edit” features, you can change the HTML structure. Clicking the “retest” button on an issue will evaluate the HTML to see whether the issue is still present. If the issue has been remediated, the issue will be marked as remediated in the report and the modified HTML for the element will be exported when the report is exported.

   Does Worldspace FireEyes support the remediation of dynamic issues?

   Yes. Using the event “Record” feature, you can create scripts that will reproduce dynamic issues. These scripts can be uploaded to the server and downloaded and re-run. If “analyze while replaying” is selected, the analysis will be done during replay and this will validate whether issues still exist.

   Does Worldspace FireEyes simulate the AT rendering of the web page?

   Yes. The SimulAT tab can be used to simulate various AT renderings including a full page transcript, headings, images, links, tables and more. Sighted users who are not familiar with AT like JAWS on NVDA can use this to visually validate what the AT user would hear.

   Can scripts be shared with other developers?

   Yes. By uploading the script to the Worldspace FireEyes server and inviting other users to collaborate with you on the project, you can share scripts, scope definitions and issues with developers, QA engineers, designers etc.

   What does the “Freeze” button do?

   The freeze button stops all user events except for the scroll event from being delivered to the browser. This is useful for exploring interim browser states using Firebug’s HTML inspect functionality where the inspect functionality would otherwise cause the state of the browser to change. It is most useful in conjunction with script replay as this allows you to toggle “freeze” on without having your mouse travel over the browser window potentially triggering mouse move, mouseover and mouseout events or changing the focus of the browser.

   What are the blue- and green-striped areas that appear in the browser?

   The green- and blue-striped areas represent accessibility issues and are toggled on and off by checking or un-checking the “highlight” checkbox. They are intended only for sighted users and perform two functions: firstly they stop the sighted user from interacting with the web page, thereby simulating the usability that a user of AT would have; and secondly, they allow the sighted user to visually locate the element related to an issue. AT users can get this same information by firstly interacting with the web page using the AT; and secondly by clicking the “Inspect” button to view the HTML related to the issue in the Firebug HTML inspector.

   Worldspace FireEyes is capturing too many changes and events and they are overwhelming me. What can I do?

   There are a couple of reasons why Worldspace FireEyes might capture many events. Firstly, you might have the event recording options, which can be viewed and changed on the “Settings” tab set to record very chatty events such as mouse movements. By turning these off, you can reduce the amount of information captured and displayed by Worldspace FireEyes; secondly, your web application might be generating lots of changes in the document through the use of JavaScript. You can use the “Filter” button to filter out the changes and events so that they do not appear in the report; thirdly, you can turn off event recording altogether by un-checking the “Record” checkbox.

   What is a project?

   Developers often have to work on multiple applications of web sites and often need or want different settings for each of these sites. The projects feature allows you to specify the domains that belong to your project (production, Q.A. and your private sandbox) so that you can have one set of settings for each project. Projects can also be shared with other users allowing you to collaborate on fixing accessibility issues and tracking your progress on fixing them. Projects also allow you to record scripts on your sandbox and replay it in your production environment to determine whether the same issues occur in both environments. This can be very useful for QA engineers and developers.

   Why do you have the “Color”, “Order” and “Focus” buttons?

   In order to accurately perform color contrast, reading order analysis and focus indicator testing, Worldspace FireEyes has to send events to the browser and perform DOM manipulations. In order to avoid an infinite loop of analysis when “automatic” analysis is turned on, the advanced versions of these tests have been placed inside a button. Pressing this button will disable the automatic analysis while the analysis is taking place and the re-enable it once completed.

   Why does the display sometimes change during reading order analysis?

   Worldspace FireEyes does a two pass analysis on the reading order. The first pass is with CSS enabled and the second pass is with CSS disabled. When the CSS is disabled, the browser will sometimes redraw the document before the analysis begins, this will result in the display of the page changing.

1. New Features in Beta 4
   • As of 4/9/2011, Firefox 4 is supported by Worldspace FireEyes Beta 4
   • The SimulAT feature has been made available to simulate what assistive technology would experience on the page.
   • The Focus button has been added to allow FireEyes to automatically detect missing visual focus indicators.
   • The ARIA button has been implemented to allow static analysis of ARIA roles and attributes. Additional ARIA rules have been implemented and made available through the analysis settings and through the ARIA button.
   • The integration into the Worldspace Enterprise server has been released allowing content encountered during a script replay to be sent to a Worldspace FireEyes collection for analysis and reporting
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can synchronize their FireEyes projects with JIRA allowing a JIRA issue to be created and tracked for each page analyzed.
   • The image alternative text rules have been improved to support the Jim Thatcher 11 (JT11) image analysis methodology. This distinguishes between active, informational and formatting images.
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can create custom standards for use with the FireEyes server and extension. These custom standards allow for the inclusion of all existing Deque rules as well as custom rules.
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can create custom rules for use in the FireEyes server and the extension.
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can create weights for the issues generated by Worldspace FireEyes allowing pages and issue categories to be ranked according to importance.
   • The synchronization between the server and the extension has been eliminated, this leads to many performance improvements, especially when working with a large number of projects.
   • The toolbar has been made collapsible, allowing for users with narrow screens to access all the features in the toolbar using only the mouse.
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can create groups and use these groups to control access to projects.
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can create projects with project administrators as well as project members. Project administrators can control things like project membership, project standard, project policies. Project members can analyze pages, work on issues, scripts, pages etc.
   • Worldspace Enterprise customers can create projects that allow the issues to be managed and reported on by page in addition to the issue level functionality available in public projects.
   • Scripting and script replay now supports infinite frame nesting
   • When exporting issues to Excel from the server, the relevant standards for the issue will also be exported.
   • User logins have now been converted to lower case only, avoiding potential duplicate account creation that was common when users were invited to join the service.
   • Many performance enhancements were made and memory leaks were fixed, leading to better performance over a long period of time.
   • The analysis rules were improved and many conditions that had previously caused the analysis to hang or fail have been fixed.
   • Script replay has been made much more robust, in particular where pages are very “chatty”, the script will no longer hang indefinitely although it might take a long time to complete.
   • Projects can now be deleted on the server
   • Project creation has now been moved to the server
   • Projects can now have multiple domains and the domains in the projects no longer have to be unique
   • User can now control which project they are working on and can therefore use a particular project’s settings for multiple web sites (although the upload of issues will only store the issues corresponding to the project domains)

1. Bug Fixes in Beta 4
   • When adding multiple synthetic script events, the order is now maintained correctly
   • Bugs were fixed that caused the issue download and upload to sometimes fail silently
   • Fixed the bug that caused the issue list to sometimes display duplicates of the issues when switching between multiple tabs

1. Known Issues in Beta 4
   • On Windows and in Firefox 4, the visual focus indicator test does not work. This is due to an incompatibility in Firefox 4 between Windows and other platforms. If you need this feature, either use another platform like OS X, or user Firefox 3.5 or 3.6.

1. New Features in Beta 3
   • Server implemented to allow sharing of issues, scripts and templates
   • Support for exporting lists of issues in Excel format
   • Server projects can be used to store the default settings for a user for a particular project
   • Server projects can be shared with other users by inviting them to the project. The invitees will automatically be given the same default settings as the inviter.
   • Users can record scripts and share these scripts with all project members by uploading them to the server.
   • Users can share generated issues with project members by uploading them to the server.
   • Users can create scope definitions to break pages up into the components that different users or groups are repsonsible for and share these scope definitions with all members of the project.
   • Users can track the status of shared issues and mark them as fixed or ignored (in the case of false positives). These dispositions are remembered and applied to all future detected instances of an issue.
   • Users can assign issues to each other and track the overall progress of issues in the project through the project summary
   • Users can attach labels to issues for easy sorting and filtering.
   • A powerful filtering interface is available to allow large lists of issues to be managed.
   • Users can download issues from the server into the extension for debugging or remediation. They can apply filters such as assignee, status, URL and label to target a particular set of issues.
   • Users can capture issues manually and manage these manually captured issues along with the automatically detected issues.
   • Issues uploaded to the server are de-duplicated intelligently to minimize the number of issues that needs to be tracked to the unique issues.
   • A comprehensive set of help files is now available from within the server UI
   • The issue details now contains a list of the standards that apply to the issue as well as the issue status and assignee.

1. Improvements and Bug Fixes in Beta 3
   • The color contrast analyzer is now fully WCAG 2 AA compliant with respect to flicker rates.
   • The speed of the automatic analysis has been greatly improved in the case of highly dynamic sites.
   • The speed has been improved due to the elimination of memory leaks in the extension’s HTML UI.
   • An issue has been fixed with the intermittent display of a Java initialization warning when the Java initialization had in fact completed correctly.
   • The color use rules have been improved to generate fewer false positives
   • The clear button now allows the user to specify which elements to clear.
   • The export functionality has now been moved to the server and supports Excel (see above)
   • A multitude of accessibility enhancements have been made including better keyboard navigation through the extension’s issue list and improved announcements when being used with NVDA.
   • Added a document level analysis feature to the scope selection to allow for testing of everything except what has been defined in the templates or the selected templates.
   • The script replay has been improved to now wait for the page to completely draw and to wait for the prior event’s analyses to complete in addition to waiting at least the time specified in the script prior to firing the next event. This leads to more predictable script replay.
   • Scope definition explorer now shows the robust and the non-robust XPaths
   • Reading order issues have now been moved to the manual verification severity level from the violation severity level
   • about:javascript and about:blank addresses are now no longer considered valid issue addresses
   • On pages with single quotes inside JavaScript code, the analysis sometimes failed to generate any issues. This has been fixed.
   • An option has been added to allow the user to reset to the settings stored for them on the server in addition to the existing option of restoring their settings to the FireEyes defaults.
   • The script timeout settings for Firefox are now automatically set to values that work well with FireEyes – eliminating the annoying popup warnings for long running scripts.
   • The download mechanism for the extension has been improved to now be correctly interpreted by Firefox, leading to an improved download experience.
   • We have used ARIA live-regions to announce the status and updates for background tasks to the AT
   • We have fixed a bug where the button controls became unresponsive after a tab was opened for a web site Firebug is disabled
   • We have fixed many memory leaks that caused the Firefox process to consume a large amount of memory and eventually become unresponsive over the course of a day of using FireEyes.
   • When exporting issues to Excel or .csv, the mapping to the issues relevant Section 508 paragraph, WCAG 1 technique and/or WCAG 2 success criteria is also exported
   • We fixed an issue where dynamic issues being uploaded to the server would cause the dialog to display until dismissed and also failed to upload the issues to the server
   • We fixed some confusing focus changes when issues are deleted from the issues list using the keyboard
   • The server now supports the storage of UTF8 content allowing issues from multilingual sites to be stored and retrieved correctly
   • Fixed the color contrast and reading order analysis buttons to only replace the issues from the current document instead of replacing all the color contrast or reading order issues in the issues list

1. Known Issues In Beta 3
   • Sometimes, code can fail silently when the network connection is temporarily interrupted
   • Firefox 4.0 is not supported due to an issue with Java support in Firefox 4.
   • The spoken text in the combo-boxes for capturing manual issues in the extension is not understandable by some AT (in particular NVDA)
   • Some DOM changes do not trigger automatic analysis. In particular changes that affect only the text of a node will sometimes not be picked up.