accessibility: Torrent Contents list, main torrents list

[jteh]

Hi all.

I am a totally blind screen reader user. First of all, it is worth noting that for the most part, µTorrent is very accessible to screen reader users due to its use of native widgets. Thanks!

I have found a couple of accessibility issues in µTorrent 1.8.

The first is a regression from 1.7.7. For some reason, the path names in the "Torrent Contents" list view in the "Add Torrent" dialog are no longer exposed via MSAA (the native Windows accessibility API). I know that this list view was changed somewhat between 1.7.7 and 1.8. I realise that there is probably no specific accessibility support implemented here, but something changed with regard to the path name column that caused the list view not to expose it to MSAA for some reason. This is quite a serious accessibility problem, as it means that screen readers cannot read path names in that list.

The second issue exists in both 1.7.7 and 1.8. When focused on the main torrents list in the main window, it seems to send focus events more than once a second, even if a menu is open. (Normally, a focus event is only sent when the focus changes.) Most screen readers include code to filter out duplicate focus events so that this sort of problem doesn't cause the same info to be read ad infinitum. However, the problem is that when the user accesses a menu, this list continues to send focus events, meaning that the screen reader is constantly bounced from the menu item of interest back to the list, even though the keyboard focus is still held by the menu. I'm not sure what might be causing this, but I do know that this does not happen in any other lists in µTorrent. Is it perhaps something to do with the current item blinking, being refreshed, etc.?

Thanks once again for a great torrent client.

[Firon]

You made this report some time ago in the 1.8 thread. Like I said then, it won't be resolved until 1.8.1.

[jteh]

These issues are not addressed in 1.8.1 nor later versions. Should I post requests in the threads for each version as it is being developed so it isn't forgotten? If it just hasn't been addressed due to other priorities, that's of course fine; I just wanted to make sure it hasn't been forgotten completely.

[Firon]

We haven't actually forgotten this (it came up in a recent discussion about what needed priority for fixing), but uTP has taken over development time. It won't be resolved until after that, unfortunately. I can't give you an exact ETA.

[jteh]

Regarding the missing path name in the Torrent Contents list, I am guessing that this is being owner drawn for some reason, which would explain why it isn't exposed via MSAA. This can be exposed to MSAA manually using direct dynamic annotation. See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd373677%28VS.85%29.aspx

In this case, the hwnd is the hwnd of the list view, the object ID is OBJID_CLIENT, the child ID is the iItem of the item + 1, the property ID is PROPID_ACC_NAME and the new value should be a VARIANT containing the path name.