accessibility of java desktop applications on mac

By Don Raikes, 12 September, 2012

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Hello, I am considering switching from windows to a mac. My primary job is to test java-based desktop applications for accessibility, and I have become curious whether these could be accessible on a mac. The applications in question are written using swing, and are "fairly accessible" on windows, but before I spend hte money for a mac, I want to have some assurance that I can use the applications on it. I have to confess I haven't ever used a mac nor for that matter have I ever actually "seen" one that I know of :-)

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By Nicolai Svendsen on Wednesday, September 26, 2012 - 05:00

Hello! SOme people a while ago claimed that VoiceOver needs the Java Access Bridge as assistive technology on Windows does, but this doesn't work in the same way as it does on OS X. On OS X, developing accessible Java applications requires developers to implement the Java Accessibility API (the javax.accessibility package) to ensure their applications are accessible (both Swing and AWT interfaces are accessible) from what I've observed. So, you shouldn't have many problems at all. It has been a while since I developed in Java, but I've always had success so far. You may want to see if you can try it out somewhere, however, but these are my observations.