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I am just beginning to learn about accessbility specifically in relation to JAWS - so newbie alert!

I am looking to modify an old vb6 app which has a form with a 3 column flexgrid. There is a custom edit box which is overlaid on the form for editing in the right most column. On row change, ideally JAWS needs to read the contents of the 2 leftmost columns on that row.

I am wondering how best to implement this?

I have seen possible solutions of loading into a text file and shelling out to JAWS on a row-change type event. This seems a bit heavy but maybe it is a good solution.

I have also read about the IAccessible interface. This sounds like a good solution to me, but I don't know if it'd give me what I was after ie whether JAWS uses this interface to get its info.

I would be grateful if someone could advise me/steer me in the 'right' direction about the way I should be thinking about this.

JasonMArcher
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Simon Woods
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1 Answers1

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Visual Basic 6 is unsupported by Microsoft many (12+) years ago. It doesn't have any easy way to incorporate MS Active Accessibility (MSAA), the previous versions were missing support in many of the default graphic widgets, and many controls did and do not have keyboard access.

Don't use it is the best answer, but not to your question. If you must continue, you'll have to look at the MSAA route (you are headed in the right direction with IAccessible interface)

Norman B. Robins0n
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    Thx very much normal. I found out over at the MSDN forums that according to MS, MSAA has since been superceded and I need to look at the native-code UIA API. – Simon Woods Jan 20 '12 at 08:16
  • @SimonWoods Hi :) I am also facing a similar problem as that of yours where I am trying to get the text contained in the LABEL being read read JAWS. I was wondering if you could help me achieve this. – Sachin Verma Jun 11 '13 at 14:08
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    @SachinVerma Hi Sachin. You may be interested in this link http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsaccessibilityandautomation/thread/b7031a80-e0b3-48e5-a252-ec842382f943. I'll try and find my solution - if indeed I got something going - and post something a bit later. Off the top of my head, I think I ended up using the JAWS scripting language. – Simon Woods Jun 12 '13 at 09:20
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    Hi @SimonWoods ... What i did was something unconventional :) I completely removed the label from and form and instead used a text-box to display the information. Then i locked the text box , changed its property so that the background takes the color of the form, removed the borders and tada... i had this locked textbox ( which had the look and feel of a label) and JAWS read the info which it contained :) – Sachin Verma Jul 17 '13 at 11:53
  • @SachinVerma thank you, for this answer. I faced the same problem and was wondering, how to solve that jaws will be able to read labels. Even though, sooner or later one should leave VB6. I read, that the extended end of support was 4/8/2008, so about 8 years ago now (not 12+ years when the answer was posted in 2012....). – bobbel Apr 08 '16 at 23:35