FIX: DataGrid Made Compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998

View products that this article applies to.

Symptoms

The DataGrid control that was included with the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 was not compliant with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm) or with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/). Data tables that contain two or more rows or columns must identify row and column headers.

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Cause

This design issue is being addressed in a design change.

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Resolution

You must render the column headers that are mentioned in the "Symptoms" section as <th>, and the columns must reference the headers.

The Section 508 hotfix introduces new properties to make the DataGrid control accessible. These properties are UseAccessibleHeader, Caption, and CaptionAlign. By default, the value of UseAccessibleHeader is false. When UseAccessibleHeader is set to true, it renders DataGrid table headers in <th> tags with a scope="col" attribute.

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How to Obtain the Hotfix

This issue is fixed in the June 2003 ASP.NET Hotfix Package 1.1. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

821156 INFO: ASP.NET 1.1 June 2003 Hotfix Rollup Package

You cannot obtain this fix individually. You must install the rollup.

Note When you request this hotfix, you receive the rollup. The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

	           Date         Time   Version       Size       File name
		   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
		   07-Jun-2003  00:44  1.1.4322.910    253,952  Aspnet_isapi.dll
		   07-Jun-2003  00:44  1.1.4322.910     20,480  Aspnet_regiis.exe
		   07-Jun-2003  00:44  1.1.4322.910     32,768  Aspnet_wp.exe
		   15-May-2003  23:49                   33,522  Installpersistsqlstate.sql
		   15-May-2003  23:49                   34,150  Installsqlstate.sql
		   07-Jun-2003  12:52  1.1.4322.910  1,216,512  System.dll
		   07-Jun-2003  00:39                   14,472  Webuivalidation.js
		   07-Jun-2003  12:52  1.1.4322.910  1,249,280  System.Web.dll

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Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in .NET Framework version for 1.1.

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More information

Steps to Reproduce the Problem

Create a new WebForm.
Add a DataGrid.
Bind the DataGrid.
Run the page.
Save the page as an HTML page.
Run the Watchfire Bobby verification service. To verify the accessibility compliance of your new Web page, visit the following Web site:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/rational/welcome/watchfire/
You can also see WCAG checkpoint 5.1 (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html), or check section 508 requirements (http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm).

Result Data tables that contain two more rows or columns identify row and column headers. The header fields that you create render as <th>, and the columns reference the headers.
The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.

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