JAVA ACCESSIBILITY
The Road Ahead
Version 1.0
March 1998
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The Road Ahead
Between now and the next release of the JavaTM
Development Kit (JDK1.2), the Java Accessibility team will be finishing
work in the four areas we are currently focusing on. Below is a brief overview
of what remains in those areas:
The Java Accessibility API
The Java Accessibility API is pretty well defined. Barring any glaring
omissions that are brought to Sun's attention in the next few weeks, this
piece is finished. The one caveat to this is that Sun anticipates continually
adding new AccessibleRole and AccessibleState constants to those classes
based upon feedback from developers. We are also considering extending
the AccessibleContext class by adding methods to obtain objects that implement
additional interfaces such as AccessibleTable and AccessibleLayout.
Separate from the API itself, there are the user interface classes that
implement the API. As of this writing, the majority of the Swing user interface
classes implement the Java Accessibility API. Sun plans on finishing the
implementation of the Java Accessibility API on the Swing classes in time
for their inclusion into JDK1.2.
The Java Accessibility Utilities
The Java Accessibility Utilities are not yet in their final form. Sun anticipates
some changes in the class names and in some of the methods in those classes.
In addition, we expect to include support for at least one native platform
via the Java Accessibility Bridge. We also anticipate working
on the EventQueueMonitor class to help make it more thread safe.
The Java Accessibility Bridge to Native Code
The Java Accessibility Bridge is the least defined portion of the current
Java Accessibility work at Sun. Each platform the bridge works on requires
a different implementation, and care must be taken in the design so that
it will work on every Java platform. With the review and collaboration
of assistive technology vendors, Sun hopes to have at least one, if not
several Early Access releases of the bridge on the Windows 95/NT platform
before next release of the JDK is available.
The Pluggable Look and Feel is delivered in the Swing classes. There have
been several public Early Access releases of the Swing classes, and the
architecture is now changing very little between releases, with the focus
on bug fixing and adding a few additional classes. Over the next few months
Sun will continue to refine the Pluggable Look and Feel and fix bugs until
they're released as part of the next Java Development Kit (JDK1.2).
Sun will also continue working on providing complete keyboard access to
the various Pluggable Look and Feel factories currentingly shipping with
Swing.
In addition, Sun has developed a vendor neutral look and feel known
as Metal using the Swing architecture, available on all Java platforms,
and is expected to become the "standard" way that Java application's look
and feel. Sun is also currently involved in a collaborative research
project to develop a proof-of-concept audio look and feel.
Areas to focus on in the future
While the four areas in Java Accessibility that Sun is focusing on now
are the key core areas, there are other parts of the Java platform that
need to be addressed from an Accessibility point of view. That focus isn't
possible until there is a defined Java Accessibility API, support for assistive
technologies to get at that API, and a Pluggable Look and Feel architecture.
But once those pieces are released, it will be time to focus on these other
areas. They are as follows:
JavaOSTM
The Java Operating System is designed to run on very thin clients - Network
Computers, that will be used more and more in place of the larger and more
expensive personal computers of today. The current released version of
the JavaOS, JavaOS 1.0, is based on JDK1.0.2. The next release, JavaOS
1.1, is based on JDK1.1. Sun is targeting the release after JavaOS 1.1,
based on the forthcoming release of the JDK, for full Accessibility support.
Sun's Java Applications
Sun has released several Java applications and has more in the works. Released
applications include the Java Web Server, Java WorkShopTM,
and Visual Java. Once the Java Accessibility API is released, Sun can start
supporting it in updates to their existing Java applications, as well as
the new Java applications Sun releases after that time. This support will
come in many instances by virtue of using and/or switching to Swing as
the means for the user interfaces of these programs.
Copyright©
1995-97 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
To submit comments or suggestions about Java
Accessibility, please send mail to access@sun.com.
