CEF application and JAWS Screen Reader vs chome browser

[sijusamuel]

Hi,
I am using JAWS screen reader. It works reasonably well with chrome browser. But when I run a desktop application developed using embedded chromium application in windows/.net it is not working as good as Chrome. For example it identifies input fields, buttons and respect few ARIA tags as in chrome browser. But does not read the non-input sections (like headings, paragraph, not identifying up an down arrows etc); but using chrome browser it does. The CEF that I am using a 2014 version. Can you please share any input on this, or how to proceed? Do I need any thing special to support accessibility?

[magreenblatt]

Are you using the CEF C++ API or some wrapper project? What is the specific version of CEF that you're using? Chromium accessibility features are described here: http://www.chromium.org/developers/desi ... essibility

[sijusamuel]

Hi,

We are using the following version. We are using the C++ API in a C++ project in windows/.net. Which provides java script binding and renders web pages. When using JAWS, it does not read out Headers, Paragraphs etc. Is it required to provide any additional flags in chrome or in cef.?


cef_version.h

#define CEF_VERSION_MAJOR 3
#define CEF_REVISION 1422
#define COPYRIGHT_YEAR 2013

#define CHROME_VERSION_MAJOR 31
#define CHROME_VERSION_MINOR 0
#define CHROME_VERSION_BUILD 1602
#define CHROME_VERSION_PATCH 0


Thanks,
Siju samuel

[magreenblatt]

You can try the --force-renderer-accessibility flag mentioned in the above link. The CEF version you're using is old -- you might want to try a newer version.

[sijusamuel]

I have used a newer version today with sample cefclient [cef_binary_3.1650.1562_windows32.7z]. To run this I used .\cefclient --force-renderer-accessibility in a .bat file. Still when accessing using CEF, JAWS is not reading out headers and normal text paragraphs and navigations are not working. Only the tabs to a field works. But on CHOME browser it works. At the same time, NVDA works in CEF and in Chrome browser the same way. The behavior is same in different window 7 machines. Did I use the input flag correctly? Can you please suggest any thing that I can look further.

Edit-Additional Info : In cefclient_win.cpp, it perform CefInitialize(main_args, settings, app.get()). Currenly 'setting' has the command line arguments populated to CefSettingsTraits structure which does not have any thing related to 'force-renderer-accessibility'. In general, where should chromium command line inputs should be passed if with in the program. (say if I want to pass std:string "--force-renderer-accessibility" by coding with in the program.) Thanks...

[sijusamuel]

I used cef_binary_3.1650.1562_windows32.7z. Also used .\cefclient --force-renderer-accessibility. to run. In addition, I double checked the command line switches are passed correctly by finding value in 'OnBeforeCommandLineProcessing. JAWS did NOT work similarly in CEF-Application and chrome browser. Any additional info to figure this out would be helpful.

Some thing I could think of : Does it require any extra flag while building chromium to support accessibility and MSAA events?
Or some extra work required in JAWS; for which contacted the tech support



Code to re-verify the command line input :
void ClientApp::OnBeforeCommandLineProcessing( const CefString& process_type, CefRefPtr<CefCommandLine> command_line) {
CefString s = command_line->GetCommandLineString();
}

[magreenblatt]

Or some extra work required in JAWS; for which contacted the tech support

They're probably the right people to figure it out.

[Sonal]

Hi Siju
I am also facing the same problem that you mentioned. Did you get a solution to your problem?