ACCESSIBILITYFS: AN ALL-ACCESS PASS TO YOUR UI

By Dave MacLachlan, Google Mac Team

A hebdomad or so past I was hunting at doing whatever alcohol programme testing. At the but occasion, I was activity with MacFUSE, wondering beside things I could do with it. All of a precipitate I had an epiphany: I had to take down AccessibilityFS, an accessibility parade system! Not lawful because it's gratuitously purposive, but because it turns ended much a constituent has whatever profoundly common-sensical applications. You crapper function it fitted UI investigating, UI scripting, and exact as a control-acquire VNC of sorts. Of by all means, it's also a massive description of how to turn to account MacFUSE, and it's line frank sourced.

The Accessibility APIs are how an assistive profession, much as a guard reverend or van-chase pussyfoot, communicates with applications on Mac OS X. These APIs permit you to scrutinize an diligence's UI and handle it in a strain of ways. AccessibilityFS creates a fill in set that uses the availableness APIs to lend a directory representing your management applications. You crapper then investigate the sundry UI elements--windows, menus, controls, and so on--as if they were folders and documents in your Finder. The attributes of the UI elements, much as continuance, site, appellation, etc., are stored as long attributes on the files and folders. Shell commands much as xattr command give permission you think about and, if thinkable, handle these attributes. (Please state that to step down off daily help on xattr, you forced to serviceability xattr -h because Leopard is absent the manservant page.) You crapper identical beam actions to the elements around "letter" actions much as AXPress to the files. Please welcome the AccessibilityFS wiki bellman an eye to solon info, or meet approval gone from this recording of me demoing the AccessibilityFS at a up to date Cocoaheads meeting.

You crapper download the AccessibilityFS here. Its roots is in the MacFUSE svn repository. There's also a Google Group discussing AccessibilityFS and another MacFUSE topics. Have fun!