Contents
API Enhancements
Accessible Icon
Accessible Relation and Accessible Relation Set
Accessible Table
Accessible Table Model Change
AWT Accessibility Support for Lightweight Components
Accessible Applet
AWT Robot
API Enhancements
The following new classes and interfaces have been added to the
JavaTM Accessibility API in version 1.3
of the Java 2 Platform:
In addition, javax.accessibility.AccessibleContext was updated to reflect the new
classes and interfaces.
Accessible Icon
AccessibleIcon provides information about an icon's description and dimension. It
also allows these properties to be set by the application developer.
This feature is implemented by Swing icons.
Accessible Relation and Accessible Relation Set
AccessibleRelation and AccessibleRelationSet provide information about the ways user
interface objects are related to each other. Each relation is captured in an
AccessibleRelation object, and the full set of relations that any given user
interface object is involved in are expressed in that object's
AccessibleRelationSet.
Unlike most of the rest of the Accessibility
API, there is currently no built-in support for having AccessibleRelations
set automatically by Swing. This means that even if a programmer is doing
nothing out of the ordinary - using
standard components in standard ways - the AccessibleRelation information
will have to be specifically included by the programmer.
The only exception to this is if the programmer uses the
JLabel.setLabelFor() method to link a label to the thing it
labels. This will cause an accessible relationship to be created.
Accessible Table
AccessibleTable provides information about tables, and is implemented by
Swing's JTable.AccessibleJTable class. It allows a range of table-specific
attributes to be identified adn manipulated. Such properties include
text selections, the first and last row and column of the table,
its total number of rows and columns, the text of its captions and
headers, and other descriptions about its contents and format. As in
the AccessibleIcon interface, these kinds of properties (descriptions,
captions, and headers) can be set or modified by users and developers.
Accessible Table Model Change
AccessibleTableModelChange is a helper class which
encapsulates a change to the model of a table. Such changes can inlcude
insertions, deletions, and data updates.
AWT Accessibililty Support for Lightweight Components
The core accessibility support which was provided in the Java 2
Platform has been moved up the inheritance tree. This means that it is not only
present in Swing components, it is also part of all lightweight AWT
components.
Prior to version 1.3 of the Java 2 Platform, if a developer wished to create an accessible custom
component, s/he had two options.
- To extend one of the Swing components.
- To extend one of the AWT components--a task that involved more work.
Now that accessibility support has been included in both AWT Component and
AWT Container, the task of implementing the accessibility API on
non-Swing components is easier.
It is important to note that this accessibility support has not yet been
incorporated into AWTList, some portions of AWT Text, AWT Menu, and AWT
Combobox/Popup Menu. In addition, further work needs to be done in areas
where the modification of native code is required. For the present, the
necessary API is there, but it returns a null value. It is hoped that
support for "heavyweight" components will be integrated into subsequent
versions of the Java 2 Platform.
Accessible Applet
This work is similar to the changes made for the AWT accessibility support
described above.
AWT Robot
The AWT's new Robot class provides
a way to insert keystrokes and mouse events at the system
level. This feature enhances accessibility because it allows the physical
on-screen mouse cursor to be moved. This enables screen magnification
software for native environments to recognize and respond to mouse movements
that could not previously be identified by assistive technologies outside of
the virtual machine.
It is important to note that, although this improves overall accessibility,
it is not a comprehensive solution. For instance, the AWT Robot does not
allow native assistive technologies to track the focus or the caret.