UI Accessibility Checker

NEW POST: When to use UIA vs. AccChecker vs. AccExplorer32

AccChecker — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:34:37 GMT

Dan asked the following question in the UIA Verify forum (http://www.codeplex.com/UIAutomationVerify/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=29155):
<o:p> "Is there a guide or recommendation of the best or most recent tool to use? Is AccExplorer32 going to be retired?"

I have copied the question to the AccChecker forum (here) - the answer is:

AccChecker and AccExplorer are complimentary. Although AccChecker has some tree navigation capabilities, it does not display as much information as AccExplorer for the nodes. The tree navigation capabilities of AccChecker are meant to give you a reasonable idea where in the tree the problem is (if this is not clear from the highlight). On the other hand, AccChecker provides richer verifications, details on each error/warning, and an API to easily create automated test cases for the verifications you ran manually with AccCheckUI.

So if you want to browse the tree and look for detailed information for each node, AccExplorer is the better choice.

If you want to easily verify an entire UI by pointing a tool and scanning all the nodes, tabbing navigation, rules, states, etc., then AccChecker is the choice.

Also, AccChecker has the “Screen Reader” feature – with this feature you can discover very quickly if your UI’s programmatic access is broken – just scan the text in the “Screen Reader” tab – if you don’t see the texts that you would expect to see by observing the UI, then you know something is wrong. Or if you see information that should not be there, again something is wrong (for example if you see a push button that has the name “MyBtnControl1”, you immediately will know that this name will not make sense to the user when read by a real screen reader).

Hope this helps.
Peter

</o:p>

NEW POST: AccCheckUI.exe Doesn't Run

AccChecker — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:07:51 GMT

Dan,

As Matthias mentioned, the above would help a lot.

Also, did you try running AccCheckUI.exe from the same folder where the UI lives? For example, if AccCheckUI.exe is in folder C:\Tools\, and your current directory is C:\ and you try to run it with the command C:\Tools\AccCheckUI.exe, it will not work. You will need to be in C:\Tools\.

Thanks,
Peter

NEW POST: AccCheckUI.exe Doesn't Run

MKnebel — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:39:17 GMT

Hello Dan,

i can only say that i don't have any problem yet to run AccCechUI 1.1 on XP.
Perhaps it would help the support if you describe your Error Exception or make a dump
for them. And of course description of your pc-system.
Best regards
Matthias

NEW POST: AccCheckUI.exe Doesn't Run

danpeay — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:13:18 GMT

I have been looking forward to using AccCheckUI, but 1.1 still does not appear to run on XP.
I get an Error Exception and the app closes.

I've check the readme and other sources, but can't find anything I am missing.
Thanks,
Dan

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

AccChecker — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:23:38 GMT

Thanks Matthias.

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

MKnebel — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:31:57 GMT

Hello Peter,

i tried it and it's run. Only a Error Code 1 because of copying the help files. But the programm itself running.
Thx
Matthias

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

AccChecker — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:49:50 GMT

Haven't tried compiling it with Express - I get the full Visual Studio for free at work :-)

If you have Express already installed, do you mind trying and let us know whether it builds? Off the top of my head, there should't be anything that would prevent building with Express 2008.

Thanks,
Peter

MKnebel wrote:
Hi,

it is possible to use MS Visual Studio Express 2008 ??

Thx for your answers
MKnebel

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

MKnebel — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:30:06 GMT

Hi,

it is possible to use MS Visual Studio Express 2008 ??

Thx for your answers
MKnebel

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

AccChecker — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:39:11 GMT

Hi,

The binaries we published here for version v.1.1 are built using the source code from change set 17154, which you can download from http://www.codeplex.com/AccCheck/SourceControl/ListDownloadableCommits.aspx. So if you want to build the binaries yourself, just download this version, and build them with Visual Studio.

I haven't tried downloading the source code through the source control client, so I cannot guarantee that this will work, although I fully expect it. However, downloading the sources from the above URL and then building them will work - I have tried this.

Thanks,
Peter Lakov
AccChecker Program Manager

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

Junho — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:10:15 GMT

Hi,

I think change set isn't created for the version yet. Does the source code that can be downloaded using a source control client have been updated?

Thanks,
Junho

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

MKnebel — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:25:59 GMT

That's great.
It was important to support WinXP.
I can agree it's run on WinXP without any error message.
In the future i will comments again if worked in detail with the tool.
BR
MKnebel

UPDATED WIKI: Home

AccChecker — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:34:24 GMT

IMPORTANT UPDATE: AccChecker version 1.1 is now published. It includes important updates, including support for Windows XP and Server 2003. You can download the updated binaries from the Releases location.

UI Accessibility Checker (or AccChecker) enables testers without prior experience to easily discover accessibility problems with Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and other User Interfaces (UI) implementations for Windows. AccChecker was born from the realization that existing MSAA tools, such as Inspect or AccExplorer, provided in-depth details on the implementation, but no information whether that implementation is correct or not.

AccChecker comes in three modes – a Graphical User Interface (GUI) tool for the initial investigations of UIs, a set of simple APIs for easily creating automatic test cases, and a command-line tool for batch processing. Using the GUI tool, a tester can easily scan a UI and review the list of errors and warnings. Then, using the per-issue documentation, the tester can determine why each particular issue has occurred, what the implications may be on users with disabilities, and how to fix the issue. Once all issues have been fixed, the tester can use the APIs to create regression tests. Finally, if the APIs cannot be used for any reason, the tester can use the command-line mode of the tool to create tests in a batch file.

AccChecker uses a plug-in architecture, which allows 3rd party developers to create additional verifications. The verifications provided in AccChecker out-of-the-box include:

Verifications for accessible Name, Role, and State
Verifications for the MSAA tree integrity, such as child-parent relationships or bounding rectangles
Verification for keyboard navigation by tabbing
A simplified screen reader which shows the textual information available to a real screen reader

AccChecker source code and binaries are published as a contribution from Microsoft to the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance. The license under which AccChecker is published should allow 3rd party companies to use the code for any purpose, such as porting the tool to other operating systems, or incorporating portions of the code in independent products.

Resources:

UPDATED WIKI: Home

AccChecker — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:33:27 GMT

Verifications for accessible Name, Role, and State
Verifications for the MSAA tree integrity, such as child-parent relationships or bounding rectangles
Verification for keyboard navigation by tabbing
A simplified screen reader which shows the textual information available to a real screen reader

NEW POST: Version 1.1 has been published

AccChecker — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:20:57 GMT

Hello,

This is a quick note to let you know that we just published version 1.1. This version includes important fixes and stabilizes the tool further, but most importantly, v.1.1 now works on Windows XP and Server 2003.

Please give this version a try, and post back your comments or suggestions to the Discussions forum on this site.

Thanks,
The AccChecker team

UPDATED RELEASE: UI Accessibility Checker v.1.1 (May 21, 2008)

Wed, 21 May 2008 16:16:22 GMT

This is version 1.1 of AccChecker, which fixes many small but important issues, improves the tool stability, and most importantly, updates the tool to work on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

To start, unzip the file AccChecker_v1.1_x86.zip or AccChecker_v1.1_amd64.zip and run AccCheckUI.exe. A useful documentation is included on how to use the tool manually, investigate errors, suppress errors and warning, and create automated test cases for regression testing.

If you have questions, please post them on the Discusions forum, and we'll try to answer them as quickly as we can.

Source code checked in

AccChecker — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:48:45 GMT

Update version in about box

Source code checked in

AccChecker — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:11:15 GMT

Bug fixes in the UI and verifications. One additional verification for access keys.

UPDATED WIKI: Home

AccChecker — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:52:42 GMT

UI Accessibility Checker (or AccChecker) enables testers without prior experience to easily discover accessibility problems with Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and other User Interfaces (UI) implementations for Windows. AccChecker was born from the realization that existing MSAA tools, such as Inspect or AccExplorer, provided in-depth details on the implementation, but no information whether that implementation is correct or not.

AccChecker comes in three modes – a Graphical User Interface (GUI) tool for the initial investigations of UIs, a set of simple APIs for easily creating automatic test cases, and a command-line tool for batch processing. Using the GUI tool, a tester can easily scan a UI and review the list of errors and warnings. Then, using the per-issue documentation, the tester can determine why each particular issue has occurred, what the implications may be on users with disabilities, and how to fix the issue. Once all issues have been fixed, the tester can use the APIs to create regression tests. Finally, if the APIs cannot be used for any reason, the tester can use the command-line mode of the tool to create tests in a batch file.

AccChecker uses a plug-in architecture, which allows 3rd party developers to create additional verifications. The verifications provided in AccChecker out-of-the-box include:

Verifications for accessible Name, Role, and State
Verifications for the MSAA tree integrity, such as child-parent relationships or bounding rectangles
Verification for keyboard navigation by tabbing
A simplified screen reader which shows the textual information available to a real screen reader

NEW POST: AccCheckUI.exe Doesn't Run

MKnebel — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:17:47 GMT

Hi Peter Lakov,

thank you for your answer and helps.
I would now try it.
Have a nice week.
Best regards
M. Knebel

NEW POST: AccCheckUI.exe Doesn't Run

AccChecker — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:53:01 GMT

Hello and Happy Easter to you as well :-)

The feature "Screen Reader" in AccChecker does not have this functionality. I.e. if you tab around, it won't read the controls which get the focus. Is just dumps the textual information, and then it's done.

If you'd like to use a tool which will follow the keyboard focus and read the things that currently have focus, you can use the tool Inspect (from the MSAA SDK - you can download the binaries from MSDN). Just enable keyboard focus tracking, enable rectangle highlight, and disable mouse tracking. Then as you tab around, a rectangle will track the keyboard focus and Inspect will show the current Name/Value/Role/etc. of the currently focused item.

If you'd like to use a tool which shows the data as it changes in other windows, you can use the AccEvent - again, see location below. When you run this tool, it will start dumping the Win Events that occur on your machine. For example, every 1 minute you will see an OBJ_VALUECHANGE event for the system time.

You can download these tools here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3755582A-A707-460A-BF21-1373316E13F0&displaylang=en

Hope this helps,
Peter Lakov
AccChecker Program Manager