I suspect that at the moment, the answer to your question is probably not, it is not 508 compliant, but then I've not done any testing in this regard, nor am I aware of anyone else having done any. Ultimately what I would really love to do is add WAI-ARIA support to DataTables, which would far exceed what is required by 508. If you are, or know of an ARIA consultant, or anyone else who would like to get involved with the project, I would love to open a discussion on it, since I am far from an expert myself.
However, back to your original question, to be section 508 compliant, the table would need to be navigable by keyboard. Generally this is possible, with the exception of paging - for that there is a plug-in which will use link tags rather than span to help with keyboard navigation: http://datatables.net/plug-ins/pagination#links . I think that probably would allow DataTables to be 508 compliant, but again, I'm no accessibility expert and would appreciate some input from anyone who is.
Regarding the PDFs - I presume you are referring to those created by TableTools. These almost certainly aren't, since there is no code in to help with that.
To add a few comments since I've been dealing with 508 compliance recently myself and have been trying to make use of DataTables for the app I'm creating:
It helps if you can make the table headers links instead of simple text so they are keyboard accessible via the tab key.
For example: First Name
Also you have to make sure the links are semantically meaningful. (Something that can't be done programmatically.)
I've done this with success. Pressing Enter on the column even makes it sort and highlights it.
Something similar would also need to be added for the pagination links in the plugin I think. I've tried adding this plugin myself as is, but couldn't get it to work I'm afraid.
As far as building the table data itself, making that 508 compliant is really up to the person creating the table. (A good article about that can be found here: http://www.jimthatcher.com/webcourse9.htm)
Replies
I suspect that at the moment, the answer to your question is probably not, it is not 508 compliant, but then I've not done any testing in this regard, nor am I aware of anyone else having done any. Ultimately what I would really love to do is add WAI-ARIA support to DataTables, which would far exceed what is required by 508. If you are, or know of an ARIA consultant, or anyone else who would like to get involved with the project, I would love to open a discussion on it, since I am far from an expert myself.
However, back to your original question, to be section 508 compliant, the table would need to be navigable by keyboard. Generally this is possible, with the exception of paging - for that there is a plug-in which will use link tags rather than span to help with keyboard navigation: http://datatables.net/plug-ins/pagination#links . I think that probably would allow DataTables to be 508 compliant, but again, I'm no accessibility expert and would appreciate some input from anyone who is.
Regarding the PDFs - I presume you are referring to those created by TableTools. These almost certainly aren't, since there is no code in to help with that.
Allan
It helps if you can make the table headers links instead of simple text so they are keyboard accessible via the tab key.
For example: First Name
Also you have to make sure the links are semantically meaningful. (Something that can't be done programmatically.)
I've done this with success. Pressing Enter on the column even makes it sort and highlights it.
Something similar would also need to be added for the pagination links in the plugin I think. I've tried adding this plugin myself as is, but couldn't get it to work I'm afraid.
As far as building the table data itself, making that 508 compliant is really up to the person creating the table. (A good article about that can be found here: http://www.jimthatcher.com/webcourse9.htm)