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Resolved Advice on Accessibility & Screen readers

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  1. Jesper Nowak
    Jesper Nowak
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. Tuesday, 3 May 2022 09:17 AM UTC

Hi,

We have a customer project with focus on accessibility and screen reader (JAWS).

I would like to mimic the settings/behaviour of PB controls in order for our application to work better in regards to accessibility and screen readers.

We are using PB 2019 R3 Build 2728.

In the demo application attached screen reader JAWS work well with the PB controls listview and dropdownlistbox. I would like to be able to mimic that behaviour in the datawindow lists and dropdown because our application is heavily relying on that. 

The accessibility properties I have set in our own object its not being considered.

Also attaching some screenshots from Accessibility Insights for Windows where you can see how the object differ. There is an id shown, called Role, for the PB controls which I am curious of what it means. Is it for the AccessibleRole property? In that case could I get some documentation of what AccessibleRole has which id?

How can this be done with the accessibility properties currently available (AccessibleName, AccessibleDescription, AccessibleRole)?

Best Regards,

Jesper Nowak

Attachments (3)
demo app.zip
inspect on PB listview.PNG inspect on PB listview.PNG
inspect our lists.PNG inspect our lists.PNG
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Responses (3)
Andreas Mykonios
Andreas Mykonios Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Tuesday, 3 May 2022 09:50 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 1

Hi.

Don't know if this id you see is related with accessiblerole. Accessible role numeric values for datawindows are documented in help file. Just search for: "AccessibleRole constant (DataWindows)".

PowerBuilder enumerated value Numeric value
DefaultRole! 0
TitleBarRole! 1
MenuBarRole! 2
ScrollBarRole! 3
GripRole! 4
SoundRole! 5
CursorRole! 6
CaretRole! 7
AlertRole! 8
WindowRole! 9
ClientRole! 10
MenuPopupRole! 11
MenuItemRole! 12
ToolTipRole! 13
ApplicationRole! 14
DocumentRole! 15
PaneRole! 16
ChartRole! 17
DialogRole! 18
BorderRole! 19
GroupingRole! 20
SeparatorRole! 21
ToolBarRole! 22
StatusBarRole! 23
TableRole! 24
ColumnHeaderRole! 25
RowHeaderRole! 26
ColumnRole! 27
RowRole! 28
CellRole! 29
LinkRole! 30
HelpBalloonRole! 31
CharacterRole! 32
ListRole! 33
ListItemRole! 34
OutlineRole! 35
OutlineItemRole! 36
PageTabRole! 37
PropertyPageRole! 38
IndicatorRole! 39
GraphicRole! 40
StaticTextRole! 41
TextRole! 42
PushButtonRole! 43
CheckButtonRole! 44
RadioButtonRole! 45
ComboBoxRole! 46
DropListRole! 47
ProgressBarRole! 48
DialRole! 49
HotkeyFieldRole! 50
SliderRole! 51
SpinButtonRole! 52
DiagramRole! 53
AnimationRole! 54
EquationRole! 55
ButtonDropDownRole! 56
ButtonMenuRole! 57
ButtonDropDownGridRole! 58
WhiteSpaceRole! 59
PageTabListRole! 60
ClockRole! 61
SplitButtonRole! 62
IPAddressRole! 63
OutlineButtonRole! 64

Andreas.

Comment
Jesper Nowak
  1. Jesper Nowak
  2. Wednesday, 4 May 2022 06:27 AM UTC
Thank you, good to know. Still not sure if the ID:s I see in Accessiblity Insight are these ID:s.
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John Fauss
John Fauss Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Tuesday, 3 May 2022 13:20 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 2

Hi, Jesper - 

Included below are a couple of links to PB Help topics related to UI Accessibility & Automation support:

https://docs.appeon.com/pb2019r3/whats_new/UI_accessibility_support.html

You can see in Table 2 in the Help topic referenced above that many, but not all DataWindow presentation styles are supported.

https://docs.appeon.com/pb2019r3/application_techniques/ch08s02.html

HTH, good luck!

Comment
Jesper Nowak
  1. Jesper Nowak
  2. Wednesday, 4 May 2022 06:34 AM UTC
Hi, yes I have seen these. In my demo app attached the datawindows I use are FreeForm, which are supported. Would like to know how I can get a screen reader to read more than just the text written in the field that currently have focus. For a listview control the screen reader reads a lot more information.
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John Fauss
  1. John Fauss
  2. Wednesday, 4 May 2022 14:58 PM UTC
What technology is JAWS based on? Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), Microsoft UI Automation, or something else? MSAA is older (Windows 95 era) technology and it does not work well with DataWindows, from what I read. I also see that JAWS has been around for a long time, so it likely used MSAA initially and maybe still does? Unless it is now using UI Automation technology, I'm doubtful you'll have much success. The support for MS UI Automation added to PB in 2019 R3 purportedly provides improved interfacing with accessibility software, but only if that software uses MS UI Automation technology instead of MSAA. I looked at Freedom Scientific's web site but did not see any statement which technology JAWS uses. Did same for Accessibility Insight for Windows without results, but as that is much more recently developed I'm more confident it uses MS UI Automation... just now sure about it.
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Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Wednesday, 4 May 2022 16:10 PM UTC
Hi John / Jesper;

FWIW: JAWS is based on the Microsoft Accessibility technology. It has been around for three decades now and is the CNIB's (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) highly recommended screen reader. HTH

FYI: https://cnib.ca/en/screen-readers

Regards ... Chris
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Miguel Leeuwe
Miguel Leeuwe Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Wednesday, 4 May 2022 07:46 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 3

Hi,

Don't forget to make sure that you DON'T have this setting in your PB.INI file:

[Data Window]

Accessibility=0

You might be able to use different values than 0 though, depending on your needs. See https://www.pb.miguell.work/pb-ini/list-entries for an explanation of possible values.

regards,

MiguelL

Comment
Jesper Nowak
  1. Jesper Nowak
  2. Wednesday, 4 May 2022 09:19 AM UTC
Thanks I don't
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