>>http://www.nfb.org/aolpr.htm is a page explaining the National Federation of the Blind suing America On Line for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, alleging that their software is incompatible with software used by the blind to render screens in non-visual formats. In particular, the suit alleges that AOL software uses bitmapped controls rather than standard Windows objects, and that these controls cannot be rendered by refreshable braille displays and other devices.
>>
>>I'm bringing it up here because VFP uses bitmapped controls, as does Access 97. I'm wondering if M$ has a similar legal exposure.
>
>NFB is suit-happy; they're the ones who went after the people who released the "Mr. Magoo" movie. They're interested in generating publicity and not advancing the cause of visually-handicapped users.
>
>There are workarounds available for VFP in conjunction with some screen readers; I can send you some contact people who might be able to suggest solutions for letting viusally impaired users run VFP applications.

The page said that NFB had several complaints - the others would not be a problem for us. The reasons why VFP uses bitmapped controls have been discussed here before. The Access 97 Developer's Handbook by Litwin, Getz, and Gilbert (Sybex) explains that it was done in Access 97 for performance reasons which might also apply to VFP.

I originally linked to that page from the Interface Hall Of Shame ( http://www.iarchitect.com/shame.htm ), which mentions the suit in its "recent additions" section. The NFB's complaints about the inteface are mostly the same things the IHOS is trying to teach people not to do. If you have any information either justifying bitmapped controls or describing a typical workaround for the blind, you might forward it to them (I'm also interested, but I have no immediate need). As for me, I might just send in the paragraph in Litwin, Getz, if I can find it.

This business with software trying to read bitmapped controls sounds like a similar problem to the inability of vfp testers to use some conventional QA tools on forms with bitmapped controls.