What this document contains:
ODFBetter is a tool validating the accessibility of .odt file(Open Document Format,text like).It reads the .odf file,parses the file and, validates it according to the ODF Guildline & Accessbility Demand.Then it gives the report. It uses a xml file to deploy the checks which need to be performed in the program.So it's extendable(just fill new requests to the xml file: checks.xml and guildline.xml).Implemented in Java and will be platform independent.It has a core package. To wrap the core package,it's command-line utility and can be window utility.Other developers can import the core package in their project too.
This project is for the IBM ODF Contest.I try to create a integrated package for Validating ODF file's accessibility and solving the problems found by it. But I only have an general idea.I got a draft named "Accessibility Guidelines for ODF" from the OASIS OpenDocument Accessibility Subcommittee,from which I realized that the work should be very similar to HTML.There are many tools work for HTML's accessibility. (And I got the idea that translating the ODF file to HTML.But the ODF Fellowship have contributed a tool for these.) The Option A of the contest ask us to "create an extensible accessibility validation tool for word processing documents that are created in ODF".Peter Korn(Sun Microsystems, Inc,co-chairs of the OASIS OpenDocument Accessibility Subcommittee) recommend me in his back email saying :
"To make the validation tool extensible, you may want to design something that is rules based, such that you can add aditional rules to cover situations you didn't think of at first, or which are discovered later and added to future versions of ODF over time."
So I think that the xml file can solve this problem.Luckily,I found that a project named A-Checker which gives an checks.xml with checks.xsd. A-Checker is a model system that "demonstrates how web pages can be checked for accessibility problems". And it's an OSS that contributes it's code allow me to use and modify it properly.I writed to Chris Ridpath(A-Checker's Software Manager) and he writed back soon . He told me the main idea of how the A-Checker works.Thank him!
Before the deadline of the contest,I finished the most important parts of ODFBetter.I think I will develop it further and make it more powerful.
you can got the report by this command:
D:\workspace\ODF>java -jar odfbetter.jar
Usage: StartValidate [odffile]
D:\workspace\ODF>java -jar odfbetter.jar 1.odt
Note: you should got the odfbetter.jar and the folder "checks" which contains the checks and the guildlines.The can be got in the package.You can add new requirement to the checks.xml as a set of accessibility requirements and the odfguildline as a subset of the checks.
You should got the odfbetter.jar and you will know how to use it through the StartValidate.java. It's easy.
Note:ODFBetter not only give you a text report.If you want to use it in your code.You can get an results "Problems" which give
many information.For example,the Xpath of an error found will help you a lot if you can use Xpath in your project.
If you want to know more,you can see the source code of ODFBetter.
Any problem please,contact hwmhere@163.com