Those tools as I think you've worked out are Windows-only tools which
use the Windows-only
Java Access Bridge API that ships with JDK.
AccessBridge was designed and built 25 years ago (!) to enable Assistive
Technologies to
work for Swing applications at a time when no platform could do this.
ATs like JAWS (and others) implemented support for AccessBridge and
still provide it today
(we still get bug reports from customers using it)
So Java + Swing was a long way ahead of the platforms.
But JavaFX does not use AccessBridge.
By the time it was developed platforms were starting to add AT APIs.
So instead JavaFX implements support for the platform accessibility APIs
meaning
Narrator on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS.
Therefore JavaFX will not work with those JDK tools which are tied to
AccessBridge.
> with the screen reader JAWS running, the
Platform.accessibilityActiveProperty() is "true
I guess this is because JAWS registers itself with windows as the active AT.
Whether JAWS interjects itself into Narrator APIs would depend on
whether Windows
supports that. If it doesn't then JAWS probably has to do old-fashioned
screen scraping
and I don't know how well that would work.
A11Y is usually tested at the application level - whereas JavaFX and
Swing are both
toolkits with which to build applications - but we do try to make things
work well
with the ATs that each of them use, so Narrator is supposed to work for
JavaFX
applications on Windows.
-phil.
On 3/5/23 12:36 AM, Don Johnson wrote:
Hi All,
This is accessibility API question. Swing applications like IntelliJ
IDEA appear in the utilities jaccesswalker, jaccessinspector (JDK/bin)
and access-bridge-explorer (.NET app at
https://github.com/google/access-bridge-explorer.git). However, no
scene graph or accessibility messages in these utilities appear for
any OpenJFX application I have written. A screen reader needs both to
know the scene graph and be able to send and receive accessibility
messages to perform automation and read control descriptions.
I have put these values in the "accessibility.properties" file in the
JDK lib folder:
assistive_technologies=com.sun.java.accessibility.AccessBridge
screen_magnifier_present=true
screen_reader_present=true
In different test OpenJFX applications running on Windows machines,
with the screen reader JAWS running, the
Platform.accessibilityActiveProperty() is "true." When JAWS is not
running, the value is "false." However, the screen reader cannot
communicate with the OpenJFX applications.
Why are the OpenJFX applications not communicating across the
communication channel facilitated by the WindowsAccessBridge-64.dll
and JavaAccessBridge.dll? Incidentally, the Java Access Bridge is
enabled with jabswitch.exe. There is some type of Windows IPC used by
the bridge (COM?) once it is enabled. This bridge facilitates
communication between the screen reader and a Java application running
inside of a JVM.
I've also tried explicitly setting roles etc. even though OpenJFX
graphical object already have default values. For example in the
"bouncing ball" sample program I set,
setAccessibleRole(AccessibleRole.BUTTON);
setAccessibleRoleDescription("Bouncing Ball");
setAccessibleText("I'm a bouncing ball");
setAccessibleHelp("This is bouncing ball, use the primary
action to start animation");
Does anyone have an OpenJFX sample program the shows up in the
jaccesswalker and jaccessinspector utilities and works with a screen
reader like JAWS or NVDA? This YouTube presentation implies
accessibility is already built into OpenJFX, but I can't get it to
work, see https://youtu.be/iUPPEkD9H1I "The New JavaFX Accessibility
API." My applications must comply with Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 but cannot so far because of this OpenJFX
accessibility problem.
Thanks,
Don
