AccessibilityAPIs

Accessibility APIs allow an AssitiveTechnology? (AT) program to access and control another program. They allow the AT program to exercise the User Interface (UI) in much that same way that a user does with the standard input devices. By providing such control AccessibilityAPIs are ideal for testing and several testing platforms use them to exercise programs UIs.

Firefox provides good Accessibility API support, giving access to its main UI (called Chrome) as well as the web document itself.

Windows:

• MSAA IAccessible - with extensions
• IAccessible2 - an Open Standard that brings the Windows support into line with AT-SPI by extending MSAA. Coming in Firefox 3.0
• UI Automation - Microsoft's replacement for MSAA

Linux

• AT-SPI (Gnome).
• pyatspi python bindings for AT/API
• Accerciser AT/SPI explorer
• Mozilla's AT/SPI implementation

• QDBus Bridge (DBUS on QT and IAPoke tool

Mac

• status unknown

Web

• W3C WAI-ARIA - provides enhanced accessibility for 'web application' features such as Ajax used in Web 2.0.