ACTF Accessibility Probe (archive)

This componentry is no longer actively developed or supported in Eclipse ACTF project. Further development and enhancements of AccProbe will be directed by the IAccessible2 community residing at the Linux Foundation.

• Overview
• AccProbe Releases
• Getting started
• Building AccProbe

Overview

The Accessibility Probe (AccProbe) is a standalone, Eclipse Rich-Client Product (RCP) application that provides a view of the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) or IAccessible2 hierarchy of a currently running application or rendered document and of the properties of the accessible objects of that application or document. It can also serve as an event monitor for tracking the events fired by these accessible objects. It is meant to combine the functionality of tools like Microsoft's Inspect32, AccExplore, and AccEvent into one easy-to-use application for accessibility testing and debugging.

AccProbe Releases

Getting started

Since AccProbe is an Eclipse RCP application, it couldn't be easier to use! Simply unpack the archive you choose to download from the list above to a directory of your choosing. A top-level 'accprobe' directory will be created for you. Within this directory, double-click accprobe.exe and you're off! For more detailed instructions and using AccProbe, consult the User's Guide also found in the 'accprobe' directory.

Note: If you intend to inspect or monitor an IAccessible2-enabled application, you will need to register the IAccessible2Proxy.dll packaged with AccProbe. You do this as follows:

regsvr32 dllname

where 'dllname' is the full path to the IAccessible2Proxy.dll, <ACCPROBE_INSTALL_DIR/accprobe/org.eclipse.actf.accservice.win32.ia2_<version>/IAccessible2Proxy.dll>.

Building AccProbe

There are several steps for building AccProbe, depending upon whether or not you wish to build the requisite dlls:

• obtain the source code:
  • if you have not done so before, establish a connection to the ACTF CVS repository
  • checkout the following plugins from the org.eclipse.actf.common/plugins directory:
    • org.eclipse.actf.core
    • org.eclipse.actf.model
    • org.eclipse.actf.model.javapp
    • org.eclipse.actf.accservice
    • org.eclipse.actf.accservice.win32.ia2-fragment
    • org.eclipse.actf.accservice.win32.msaa-fragment
  • checkout the following features from the org.eclipse.actf.common/features directory:
    • org.eclipse.actf.model-feature
    • org.eclipse.actf.accservice-feature
  • checkout the following plugin from the org.eclipse.actf.examples/plugins directory:
    • org.eclipse.actf.examples.accprobe
  • checkout the following feature from the org.eclipse.actf.examples/features directory:
    • org.eclipse.actf.examples.accprobe-feature
• You will also need the following bundles from the Orbit project for an IDE build
  • org.apache.commons.beanutils
  • org.apache.commons.collections
  • org.apache.commons.jxpath
  • org.apache.commons.logging
  
  Download the bundles, drop them into your plugins directory, and restart the workbench.
• build the AccProbe product:
  1. Select File>Export... and choose Plug-inDevelopment>Eclipse Product
  2. Click Next
  3. Select /org.eclipse.actf.examples.accprobe/accprobe.product for the Configuration or Browse to it
  4. Type 'accprobe' as the root directory and check the synchronize chekcbox
  5. Select either an archive or directory to which to export the product and provide the remaining requisite information
  6. Click Finish
• build the IAccessible2Proxy.dll (optional)
• build the MSAA- and IAccessible2-specific dlls for ACTF (optional)