Accessibility features for AIX 7.3

Accessibility features

The AIX Information Center, and its related publications, are enabled for accessibility.

Keyboard navigation

Using X Keyboard Extensions to increase accessibility in the X Window System Environment

If you are using Telnet or a terminal emulator program to access the AIX operating system, keyboard-accessibility features are provided by either the application or your operating environment. For example, in the Windows operating system, you can open the control panel and open Accessibility Options to enable and adjust keyboard accessibility settings. Keyboard-accessibility options are also available on an AIX® graphical workstation running the X Window System software or running the Common Desktop Environment (CDE).

The X Keyboard Extensions support standard keyboard-accessibility functions for the X Window environment and applications. The following table describes these functions and how they are activated.

Table 1. X Keyboard Extensions that support keyboard-accessibility functions

Function	Description	Activating keyboard navigation functions
StickyKeys	Interprets sequentially pressing of modifier keys as though they were pressed simultaneously. Examples are, the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination and the Shift+numeral combination, which results in a symbol. This function is provided for users who cannot press multiple keys simultaneously.	Press the Shift key five times to activate StickyKeys. Auditory feedback is provided when this function is enabled and when the function is used. Press the Shift key five times or press two modifier keys simultaneously to deactivate StickyKeys. Auditory feedback is provided when this function is disabled.
ToggleKeys	Gives an audible tone when any of the toggle keys (for example, Caps Lock and Num Lock) are pressed. This function is provided for visually impaired users.	Enabled and disabled automatically with the StickyKeys function.
SlowKeys	Filters out accidental bumping of keys by mobility impaired users.	Press the right Shift key for 12 seconds. After 8 seconds, you will hear warning beeps. After 4 additional seconds, you will hear confirmation beeps.
RepeatKeys	Enables and disables core automatic repetitive controls. This function affects automatic repetitive timeout and interval controls. This function is provided for mobility-impaired users.	Enabled and disabled automatically with the SlowKeys function. In the CDE environment, enable or disable the automatic repetitive function through the Keyboard application in the CDE Style Manager.
BounceKeys	Helps to prevent unintentional key repetitions.	Enabled and disabled automatically with the SlowKeys function.
MouseKeys	Provides keyboard control of the mouse pointer.	Press the Shift+Num Lock key combination after the keymap file has been modified. See the MouseKeys section later in this subtopic.

Activating the X Keyboard Extensions

The /usr/lpp/X11/defaults/xserverrc file must be modified in order to enable the X Keyboard Extensions on the AIX operating system.

The xserverrc file entry invokes the following options:

+kb

Enables keyboard extensions

+accessx

Enables accessibility extensions

You can add these options to the /usr/lpp/X11/defaults/xserverrc file by adding the following line to the file:

EXTENSIONS="$EXTENSIONS +kb +accessx" 

MouseKeys

MouseKeys allow you to use the arrow keys and numeric keys of the 10-key pad on the keyboard to control the mouse pointer on the screen. This function also allows you to select objects as if the buttons on the mouse were pressed.

MouseKeys are activated when the keymap file is modified. Keymap files are locale specific and are located in the /usr/lpp/X11/defaults/xmodmap/locale/keyboard directory, where locale is the name of your system's locale, for example, en_US.

After you locate the keymap file for your locale, edit the xmodmap keyboard definition file to replace the entry for the shifted version of the Num Lock key with the following string: Pointer_EnableKeys.

The following example shows the definition line for the Num Lock key:

Keypad	Base	Shift	Alt-Gr (Mod2)
Keycode 98 =	Num_Lock	Pointer_EnableKeys	NoSymbol

Using Style Manager in the CDE

Use the CDE Style Manager to customize the color, the font, the background, the color and shape of the mouse pointer, and auditory output.

Changing the color and shape of the mouse pointer

The /usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h file contains a list of the names of cursor graphics that are available to change the cursor into the following shapes:

X-cursor

The cursor becomes a large X.

arrow

The cursor becomes an arrow pointing to the right.

base_arrow_down

The cursor becomes an arrow pointing down.

base_arrow_up

The cursor becomes an arrow pointing up.

circle

The cursor becomes a circle.

To change the color and shape of the mouse pointer, enter the following command in the root window, where name is the name of the cursor graphic and color is the color that you have selected.

xsetroot -cursor_name name -bg color

For example, to change the cursor to a large, red X, enter the following command:

xsetroot -cursor_name X-cursor -bg red

Interface information

Using the command line

AIX 7.3 makes all of its functions available for use through the command-line interface. A remote system that is configured with assistive technology software can be directly attached to the AIX system by using emulation software to make the command-line input and output accessible. The command interface is also accessible remotely by using assistive technologies, such as JAWS, which supports Telnet environments from the Windows operating system.

Related accessibility information

You can view the publications for AIX 7.3 in Portable Document Format (PDF) on the AIX PDFs page.

IBM and accessibility

See IBM® Accessibility for more information.