DevExpress components are not displaying correctly when the Windows High Contrast Accessibility option is turned on. Since our customers include government agencies and large corporations, we are required to offer software that is accessible. So support for this feature is really important.
The attached screen shot shows your RibbonNotepadDemo with Word 2007 in the background. Same user interface features, but very different rendering under High Contrast mode!
Currently, your customer base is at a disadvantage when trying to sell to governments, large organizations, compliant companies, and educational institutions in the USA and Europe. Those organizations will always choose an accessible software over one that is not accessible – even if the one using DevExpress components is better in other respects. I know because I sell a lot of licenses to such entities. Sadly, many developers are not aware of this and lose potentially interesting sales.
To be accessible, a component needs to support these basic features:
a) Windows High Contrast mode + large fonts.
b) A screen reader should be able to read fields that receive focus and their state (e.g. checkbox checked or unchecked).
c) Components that allow user interaction should also work with just the keyboard.
d) Works with Windows Magnifier.
If you're not familiar with Windows Accessibility features, you can read about them here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windowsvista/
You can read more about accessibility laws and requirements here:
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=3
http://ncam.wgbh.org/cdrom/guideline2003/policy.html
http://www.sas.com/govedu/accessibility.html
StepsToReproduce:
Turn on Windows High Contrast Accessibility option and run the DevExpress RibbonNotepadDemo.
ActualResults:
Interface elements based on DevExpress components fail to paint in High Contrast.
ExpectedResults:
Interface elements based on DevExpress components should paint in High Contrast.
Ticket
B132651
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Dear Eric,
Thank you for drawing our attention to this issue. However, we cannot treat this limitation as a bug, because we simply didn't adapt our components for this mode. I've converted this report to a Suggestion, and we'll discuss it with our developers regarding future updates to our components.
Thanks,
Serge
Hi,
FYI, we will be shipping the High Contrast skin with the v2011 vol 2 release version (see Suggestion ID: S135538, Port all missing skins from the Windows Forms Skinning Library v2011 vol 1 and our blog post illustrating sample screenshots at http://community.devexpress.com/blogs/ctodx/archive/2011/10/14/delphi-sneak-peek-skins-skins-and-more-skins-coming-in-vcl-subscription-v2011-vol-2.aspx). It is likely that the new skin will meet your requirements for high contrast color schemes.
Thanks,
Alex