Accessibility, Disability Discrimination or IAccessible::

I've got to add Screen Reader support to my VB app to account for the UK's Disability Discrimination Act, similar to the US 508 Compliance (I think). I'd like to add some unseen method that allows me to communicate with a screen reader. I think this is possible using the IAccessible:: interface but I'm not sure and I'd hate to spend days trying it only to find that it isn't going to work.

Can anyone tell me how to add this functionality? Surely somebody else must have had to do this? Any VB samples anywhere, I'm running out of places to look.

Thanks,

Paul

It looks like you may have to do some investigating...

What you're lookin for here is Active Accessibility by Microsoft As far the interface your describing, it seems pretty foreign to 99% of developers...
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/msaa/default.htm


There's a wealth of good material there so hope it helps! Also, here's a link (same site) to the Active Accessibility SDK/RDK. http://www.microsoft.com/enable/msaa/download.htm
(looks like you could rake killer profits becoming knowledgable in this field and contracting out to other firms... there's a lot to learn here.)

I've been to the Active Accessibility site and got a whole load of stuff but it's all C++ based code and examples. I'm also not sure that my own knowledge of VB is up to the task of deciphering the C++ into VB. I've ported a few of the declarations into VB and they appear to work (or VB doesn't crash anyhow - my usual indicator of a bad API call).

However, I'm not sure how it all fits together and whether I have to subclass to achieve the desired result. I may have to try this subclassing idea and see what happens, it's just that I know it will take me a few days to knock up a quick test and I was hoping that somebody else may know the answer and come to my rescue!!!

Thanks,

Paul