#Accessibility

Accessibility support of an application running in Webswing is done using the WAI-ARIA 1.2 standard.

#Setup

There is no special setup to enable accessibility support in your Webswing application. Accessibility support can be enabled by user using 5 times CTRL shortcut, see below for details.

#Shortcuts

We use some special key shortcuts to workaround the fact that some key shortcuts are already taken by the browser and it is not possible to handle them. For example CTRL + TAB , CTRL + SHIFT + TAB , ALT + TAB or ALT + SHIFT + TAB.

• 5 times CTRL - pressing CTRL key 5 times in a row activates or deactivates the accessibility support in Webswing application, the preference is then stored in user's browser storage
• 3 times CTRL - pressing CTRL key 3 times in a row opens a dialog which allows user to activate any of the open windows in Webswing
• ESCAPE, SHIFT + ESCAPE - these two shortcuts allow to focus out of a JTable or JTextArea component, where it is not possible to use CTRL + TAB and CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to escape the component

#Limitations

Since the accessibility elements are generated dynamically as user changes focus in the application, it is not possible to run any automated ARIA check tools against the web page with Webswing.

The screen reader representation of the same UI elements may not always be the same if you compare the application running on Desktop and application running in Webswing. This is due to different APIs that provide information to the screen reader. There are roles which do exist in Java desktop application but not in ARIA standard, therefore it is not possible to implement them and force the screen reader to announce them.

Accessibility in Webswing is done using a parent element with application role. This role is not very well supported by some screen readers, for example JAWS. We strongly recommend using NVDA screen reader.

Accessibility is not supported in JavaFX Webswing applications.