Re: Automatic Detection of Screen Readers and Other Assistive Technology

Kynn,

Andrew is correct. Win32 programmers would use the SystemParametersInfo API 
(with the SPI_GETSCREENREADER flag) to determine whether an application has 
set said flag or not. This is a nice generic way to see if any screen 
reader is running. If you want to determine whether a specific screen 
reader is running or not, you would simply need to find out if that app's 
window is available.

For Window-Eyes:

// check to see if Window-Eyes is running
if (FindWindow("GWMExternalControl", "External Control"))
{
         windoweyesLoaded = TRUE;
}
else
{
         windoweyesLoaded = FALSE;
}

Don't quote me on this, but I believe VBScript can be mangled to work these 
features (security restrictions implied).

Aaron

At 01:35 PM 6/11/2003, Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:

>Actually, there is a way to detect screen readers, but it only works for the
>most current versions of JAWS and Window-Eyes.  Flash 6/MX is able to detect
>whether the user has a screen reader running or not.
>
>AWK
>
>On 6/11/03 1:26 PM, "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn@idyllmtn.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Wednesday, June 11, 2003, at 10:24 AM, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> >
> >> Nope.
> >> On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 07:08 AM, Michael R. Burks wrote:
> >
> > Woops sorry about that.  I got confused in my email program and ended
> > up answering a question from seven months ago.
> >
> > Please ignore -- except, of course, to note that the situation hasn't
> > changed any in the last half-year. :)
> >
> > --Kynn
> >
> > --
> > Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                     http://kynn.com
> > Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain                http://idyllmtn.com
> > Author, CSS in 24 Hours                       http://cssin24hours.com
> > Inland Anti-Empire Blog                      http://blog.kynn.com/iae
> > Shock & Awe Blog                           http://blog.kynn.com/shock
> >
>
>--
>Andrew Kirkpatrick
>CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
>125 Western Ave.
>Boston, MA  02134
>E-mail: andrew_kirkpatrick@wgbh.org
>Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
>
>617-300-4420 (direct voice/FAX)
>617-300-3400 (main NCAM)
>617-300-2489 (TTY)
>
>WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate,
>inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of
>learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.

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Received on Wednesday, 11 June 2003 15:03:19 UTC