This help topic is designed to help users of screen readers to understand the layout of this information center. It contains information about the different panels in the information center, the functions available in each panel, and what happens when you navigate around this information center using your browser's standard navigation keys. The topic Accessibility on the Home navigation panel has an overview of all the accessibility features in this information center, and links to information about each of them. Users with accessibility and disability needs should read this topic.
When the information center is first opened, you are in the home page. The information center is arranged as four main frames: the masthead, the navigation panel, the main panel (where the content appears), and the footer, in that order. Use the navigation keys that are supported by your browser to move between the frames (for example, the Ctrl-Tab combination). Depending on your browser, you might find that you require one keypress to place your focus on the main window of the browser, and four further keypresses to move through the four frames of the information center. Note that if you open one of the information classes, Tasks , Concepts , Reference or Help , the navigation panel will contain several sub-frames. This is explained in the section below on 'The navigation panel'.
For an introduction to navigating around the information center, read the Introduction topic from the home navigation panel. This topic explains the three ways to navigate around the information center. In summary, you can use the Tasks , Concepts and Reference navigation menus, to explore the information in a topic-based way. You can use the Library structure to read the information in its original books. Or you can use the search facilities to look for topics containing the information you need. Depending on the capabilities of your screen reader, you might find it easiest to start by accessing the books through the Library structure. You can get to the Full Library page, which lists all the books, by selecting 'The full library' in the Home navigation panel, or by selecting 'Library' in the footer bar. You can choose a book from this page, and use the other tabs in the footer bar to navigate through the book. Access keys are provided for all these tabs.
Accessibility information about the information center is provided below, frame by frame.
The Help topic The masthead summarizes the contents of the masthead, which are more fully described here.
The masthead contains the title bar, the tab bar, and the search bar. Use the navigation keys that are supported by your browser to move between these bars.
The title bar contains a hypertext link to the IBM home page. It also contains the title of the information center.
The tab bar contains several tabs, which select the navigation panel you want to use. Use the navigation keys that are supported by your browser to move between the tabs, and select a tab to change to that navigation panel. Note that when you select a tab, the information center brings up the navigation panel as you left it after you last selected that tab, and the main panel displays the last topic that you opened from that navigation panel. The exception is the Bookmarks tab, which does not change the content of the main panel.
You can customize the information center to remove the tabs in the tab bar or add your own. See Customization for more information. The standard tabs are Home, Tasks, Concepts, Reference, Searches, Bookmarks and Help. They are described in the following list.
The final bar in the masthead is the search bar, which enables you to make a quick search in the information center. It contains a field in which a search argument can be entered, a drop-down list to select the index that is to be searched, and a Go button that is pressed to start the search. The results of your search appear in the main panel, and the navigation panel changes to display the Searches navigation panel. For advanced searching, select the Searches tab from the tab bar, and select "Start a new search" to bring up the Advanced Search page in the main panel. Read the Help topic Search, and its subtopics, for more information about searching the information center.
Tip: The search results page gives each document a star rating for how well it matches the search criteria. The search results page is automatically generated by the search engine, and the alternate text for the star graphics is the asterisk. Make sure that your screen reader is set to read out punctuation if you want to hear the star rating. Once you save the search results and access them again, the asterisks are replaced by words, and so you do not need to set your screen reader to read out punctuation. Alternatively, you can ignore the star rating, and use the percentage match figure that follows the title of each document to judge how well the document matches your search criteria. The search results are presented in order of best match.
The navigation panel is used to display the menus containing links to information within the information center. The navigation panel consists of one of seven different sets of information, depending on the tab you have selected in the tab bar. There are navigation panels for Home, Tasks, Concepts, Reference, Searches, Bookmarks, and Help.
When one of the tabs Home, Searches and Bookmarks is selected, the navigation panel is a single frame. However, note that if you select one of the information classes, Tasks, Concepts, Reference or Help, the navigation panel contains several frames, with one frame for each category of information within that class. If you open one of the categories of information, the topics within the category appear in a new frame within the navigation panel. Use the navigation keys that are supported by your browser to move between these frames. When you have moved through all the frames within the navigation panel, the next frame is the main panel.
The functions available in each navigation panel are as follows:
The main panel contains the information you have selected. If you are in one of the books, there are hyperlinks to further relevant information. The title of the page itself is a hyperlink, which takes you to the contents page for that book. You can also select further information by using the navigation panel, described above, or the footer bar, described below. Each page ends with a hyperlink to the copyright statement.
The footer contains tabs with links to information on privacy, legal information, and the feedback form, and a set of links that enable you to navigate through a book using the Library system, instead of using the information classes ( Tasks , Concepts and Reference ). Use the navigation keys that are supported by your browser to move through the links in the footer. Using these links does not affect the content of the navigation panel. The links are as follows:
We hope that this guide to navigating the information center has been useful. For more about accessibility in the information center, the topic Accessibility on the Home navigation panel has an overview of all the accessibility features in the information center, and links to information about each of them. If you have any comments or tips on using the information center with assistive technology or keyboard shortcuts, please use the Feedback form to let us know about them.