I was investigating the feasibility of adding support for Ad-Aware SE to a free and open-source Windows screen reader. But when inspecting Ad-Aware with Microsoft's Accessible Explorer, most of the Ad-Aware SE controls lacked names or descriptions. Is there any exposure of the names of buttons like "Scan now" to Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), and if not, why not? I'm not that skilled with Accessible Explorer, so hopefully I'm missing something.
The system requirements do not state that the software is only accessible if you purchase extremely expensive commercial screen readers, so decent use of MSAA is surely a reasonable expectation:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-awa...nal_sys_req.php
It's true Ad-Aware was criticized for not being terribly accessible in 2005 by the British Association of the Blind, but two years seems plenty of time for improvement.
If readers wish to know about what Microsoft Active Accessibility is, please see the Microsoft documentation at:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms697707.aspx
If MSAA does not look sufficiently rich for Ad-Aware's user interface, Lavasoft could hack slightly richer role information into MSAA a bit like Gecko does. For details, please consult:
http://www.mozilla.org/access/windows/msaa-server
http://www.mozilla.org/access/windows/at-apis#knowndif
There are now also possible alternatives to MSAA, including Microsoft's UI Automation and the Free Software Group's IAccessible2. (The interface looks straightforward to me, so I suspect ordinary MSAA would be good enough, but I thought I ought to mention these for any Lavasoft programmer looking into this important issue.)