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Overview

Assistive applications can register to be notified about certain events in a target application. For example, creation of a window or the destruction of a UIElement. To receive notifications you must first create an observer and specify a callback function; second, add the observer's run loop source to the run loop on which you want the callback executed; and third, register the observer for one or more notifications.

When you create the observer, you specify the application being observed. An observer can receive notifications only from UIElements in that application. To handle multiple applications, you have to create at least one observer per application.

When you register an observer for a notification, you specify the UIElement you are interested in observing. When you want to receive a notification from any element in an application, use the application UIElement; you then receive the notification regardless of which element in the application sends the notification. This is useful if the UIElement does not exist yet, such as when a new window is created, or if you care about state changes, such as the keyboard focus moving, without having to observe every element separately. When the callback function is executed it is passed the UIElement that was affected by the notification.

Observers are represented by the AXObserverRef type, which is a CFType. Like all CFTypes they are reference counted (CFRetain/CFRelease).

Groups

Table

and Outline Notifications

Group members:

kAXRowCountChangedNotification

kAXSelectedColumnsChangedNotification

kAXSelectedRowsChangedNotification

New

Drawer, Sheet, and Help Notifications

Group members:

kAXDrawerCreatedNotification

kAXHelpTagCreatedNotification

kAXSheetCreatedNotification

Other

Notifications

Group members:

kAXCreatedNotification

kAXMovedNotification

kAXResizedNotification

kAXSelectedChildrenChangedNotification

kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification

Focus

Notifications

Group members:

kAXFocusedUIElementChangedNotification

kAXFocusedWindowChangedNotification

kAXMainWindowChangedNotification

Application

Notifications

Group members:

kAXApplicationActivatedNotification

kAXApplicationDeactivatedNotification

kAXApplicationHiddenNotification

kAXApplicationShownNotification

Element

Notifications

Group members:

kAXUIElementDestroyedNotification

kAXValueChangedNotification

Window

Notifications

Group members:

kAXWindowCreatedNotification

kAXWindowDeminiaturizedNotification

kAXWindowMiniaturizedNotification

kAXWindowMovedNotification

kAXWindowResizedNotification

Menu

Notifications

Group members:

kAXMenuClosedNotification

kAXMenuItemSelectedNotification

kAXMenuOpenedNotification

#defines

#define kAXApplicationActivatedNotification CFSTR("AXApplicationActivated") 

Return Value

Application UIElement

#define kAXApplicationDeactivatedNotification CFSTR("AXApplicationDeactivated") 

Return Value

Application UIElement

#define kAXApplicationHiddenNotification CFSTR("AXApplicationHidden") 

Return Value

Application UIElement

#define kAXApplicationShownNotification CFSTR("AXApplicationShown") 

Return Value

Application UIElement

#define kAXCreatedNotification CFSTR("AXCreated") 

Discussion

An element was created.

#define kAXDrawerCreatedNotification CFSTR("AXDrawerCreated") 

#define kAXFocusedUIElementChangedNotification CFSTR("AXFocusedUIElementChanged") 

Return Value

New focused UIElement or Application UIElement if there's no focus

#define kAXFocusedWindowChangedNotification CFSTR("AXFocusedWindowChanged") 

#define kAXHelpTagCreatedNotification CFSTR("AXHelpTagCreated") 

#define kAXMainWindowChangedNotification CFSTR("AXMainWindowChanged") 

Return Value

New main window UIElement or Application UIElment if there's no main window

#define kAXMenuClosedNotification CFSTR("AXMenuClosed") 

Return Value

Closed menu UIElement

#define kAXMenuItemSelectedNotification CFSTR("AXMenuItemSelected") 

Return Value

Selected menu item UIElement

#define kAXMenuOpenedNotification CFSTR("AXMenuOpened") 

Return Value

Open Menu UIElement

#define kAXMovedNotification CFSTR("AXMoved") 

Discussion

This element has moved.

#define kAXResizedNotification CFSTR("AXResized") 

Discussion

This element has been resized.

#define kAXRowCountChangedNotification CFSTR("AXRowCountChangedNotification") 

Discussion

The number of rows in this table has changed.

#define kAXSelectedChildrenChangedNotification CFSTR("AXSelectedChildrenChanged") 

Discussion

A different subset of this element's children were selected.

#define kAXSelectedColumnsChangedNotification CFSTR("AXSelectedColumnsChanged") 

Discussion

A different set of columns was selected.

#define kAXSelectedRowsChangedNotification CFSTR("AXSelectedRowsChanged") 

Discussion

A different set of rows was selected.

#define kAXSelectedTextChangedNotification CFSTR("AXSelectedTextChanged") 

Discussion

A different set of text was selected.

#define kAXSheetCreatedNotification CFSTR("AXSheetCreated") 

#define kAXUIElementDestroyedNotification CFSTR("AXUIElementDestroyed") 

Return Value

Destroyed UIElement

Discussion

The returned UIElement is no longer valid in the target application. You can still use the local reference with calls like CFEqual (for example, to remove it from a list), but you should not pass it to the accessibility APIs.

#define kAXValueChangedNotification CFSTR("AXValueChanged") 

Return Value

Modified UIElement

Discussion

This notification is sent when the value of the UIElement's value attribute has changed, not when the value of any other attribute has changed.

#define kAXWindowCreatedNotification CFSTR("AXWindowCreated") 

Return Value

New window UIElement

#define kAXWindowDeminiaturizedNotification CFSTR("AXWindowDeminiaturized") 

Return Value

Unminimized window UIElement

#define kAXWindowMiniaturizedNotification CFSTR("AXWindowMiniaturized") 

Return Value

Minimized window UIElement

#define kAXWindowMovedNotification CFSTR("AXWindowMoved") 

Return Value

Moved window UIElement

Discussion

This notification is sent at the end of the window move, not continuously as the window is being moved.

#define kAXWindowResizedNotification CFSTR("AXWindowResized") 

Return Value

Resized window UIElement

Discussion

This notification is sent at the end of the window resize, not continuously as the window is being resized.

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Last Updated: 2008-03-11