How do I make Vista's Narrator read my Swing components back to me?
accessibility, java, narrator, windows, windows-vista
Solution
You don't, Narator is a bad screen reader. You need to install the java access bridge, and then use either jaws that will run for 40 minutes at a time as a demo or NVDA which is a free screen reader that also supports Java.
Problem
I'm trying to implement a very, very simple accessibility test for Swing so I can get a handle on how big a piece of work it will be to provide accessibility support for our already established Swing application. I have the most simple Swing program, and I'm using Narrator in Windows Vista to attempt to screen-read its GUI. ``` public class ReadableFrame extends JFrame { private ReadableFrame() { super(); setTitle( "Banjollity's Window" ); setSize( 640, 580 ); setDefaultCloseOperation( WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE ); JButton button = new JButton( "Hello World" ); getContentPane().setLayout( new FlowLayout() ); getContentPane().add( button ); setVisible( true ); } /** * @param args */ public static void main( String[] args ) { new ReadableFrame(); } } ``` Narrator can read the title but nothing else. I get "Banjollity's Window, contains no other known controls". If I replace the Swing JButton with an AWT Button like so: ``` Button button = new Button( "Hello World" ); ``` ...then it works properly, and I get "Banjollity's Window, focus on Hello World button, contains Hello World button". I've tried installing the Java Access Bridge to JRE/lib/ext (and I strongly suspect this is working properly as my program refused to start up my application until I put the DLLs in Windows/System32) but to no avail. Can anybody help, or share a few suggestions?