Application Techniques
Building Accessible Applications

[Application]
ACCESSIBILITY=0

With the Microsoft UI Automation technology, the UI elements of the PowerBuilder control can be accessible to the screen reader (such as Windows Narrator), the accessibility tool (such as Accessibility Insights, Inspect), and the automated testing tool (such as QTP) in Windows 11/10 and Windows Server 2022/2019.

The Microsoft UI Automation technology allows you not only to access and test the PowerBuilder standard controls (see Table 1), but also the PowerBuilder DataWindow controls (see Table 2 and 3).

Table 1: PowerBuilder controls/objects supported by Microsoft UI Automation

The following PowerBuilder controls/objects are unsupported by Microsoft UI Automation:

Table 2: DataWindow presentation styles supported by Microsoft UI Automation

DataWindow controls of the following presentation styles are unsupported:

Table 3: Controls in DataWindow supported by Microsoft UI Automation

The following controls in DataWindow are unsupported by Microsoft UI Automation:

Examples

To enable support for PowerBuilder controls/objects through Microsoft UI Automation, you will need to set the AccessibleName and AccessibleDescription properties in the controls' Property tab page. Note that AccessibleRole property is unsupported by Microsoft UI Automation.

The following statements set the AccessibleName and AccessibleDescription properties for a command button in a Window:

cb_1.accessiblename = "Delete"
cb_1.accessibledescription = "Deletes selected text"

The following statement sets the AccessibleName property of a button in a DataWindow object:

dw_1.Object.b_1.accessiblename = "Update"

Deployment

When you deploy an accessible application, you must deploy the pbacc.dll and PBAccessibility.dll files.

For more information

For more information, refer to the PowerBuilder VPATs report, and also the Microsoft general accessibility website at http://www.microsoft.com/enable. Also helpful is the WebAim website at http://www.webaim.org.

PowerBuilder provides the infrastructure and properties needed to build accessibility features into your Windows and Web applications. Its features allow applications to conform generally to Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) Version 2. MSAA is a Windows standard that defines the way accessibility aids obtain information about user interface elements and the way programs expose information to the aids.

PowerBuilder standard controls support all required Microsoft Active Accessibility properties as listed in the following table:

Visual controls

For PowerBuilder visual controls that inherit from DragObject, you can manipulate the IAccessible Name, Role, and Description properties of each control by using PowerBuilder dot notation or the Other page in the Properties view of the painters. You can also manipulate the IAccessible property KeyboardShortcut using PowerBuilder properties wherever the ampersand in text property and accelerator property are supported. Other IAccessible properties are set automatically using Active Accessibility default support. (For example, location is automatically updated with absolute screen coordinates for Windows controls at runtime.)

The following table lists PowerBuilder visual controls that inherit from DragObject and their default accessible roles:

The OLEControl control is set to pushbuttonrole! by default. You need to set this role depending on content.

DataWindow control

PowerBuilder implements the MSAA standard for the DataWindow custom control and its children.

The AccessibleName and AccessibleDescription properties take string values. The AccessibleRole property takes the value of the AccessibleRole enumerated variable.

There are some limitations regarding accessibility support in the DataWindow:

PowerBuilder cannot provide accessibility for control content. This must be provided by the control vendor.

Examples

The following statements set the IAccessible properties for a command button in a Window:

cb_1.accessiblename = "Delete"
cb_1.accessibledescription = "Deletes selected text"
cb_1.accessiblerole = pushbuttonrole!

The following statement sets the AccessibleName property of a button in a DataWindow object:

dw_1.Object.b_1.accessiblename = "Update"

The following statements set the AccessibleRole property for a button in a DataWindow object to 43 (the number associated with PushButtonRole!) and return the property to a string variable:

string ls_data
dw_1.Object.b_1.AccessibleRole = 43
ls_data = dw_1.Describe("b_1.AccessibleRole")

Deployment

When you deploy an accessible application, you must deploy the pbacc.dll file.

For more information

For more information, refer to the PowerBuilder VPATs report, and also the Microsoft general accessibility website at http://www.microsoft.com/enable. Also helpful is the WebAim website at http://www.webaim.org.