AX Elements in some apps only exposed when using VoiceOver or Accessibility Inspector

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Created Jun ’24

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i build apps that act as Screen Readers to 1) add Vim motions everywhere on macOS 2) click (and more) AX Elements through the keyboard 3) scroll through the keyboard. it works extremely well with native apps. with non-native apps, i need to blast them with some extra AX Attributes (AXManualAccessibility, AXEnhancedUserInterface) to get them to expose their AX Elements. but there are a couple of apps tho which i can't get them to expose their AX Elements programmatically. now the weird thing is as soon as i start VoiceOver, those apps open up. or for some, if i use the Accessibility Inspector to go through their AX Elements, then they start opening up. so i'm wondering, is there one public known way that i'm missing to open up those apps, or is Apple using private APIs? any way i could make my apps behave like VoiceOver or the Accessibility Inspector to force those recalcitrant apps to open up?

thanks in advance.

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Answer 1

codingFriend1 OP

Jun ’24

I have the exact same issue in one of my apps.

Some apps (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams) do not expose their accessibility tree and don't react to any manually set attributes. But when using VoiceOver or the Accessibility Inspector tool, the elements are accessible.

It seems there is a secret flag to tell apps that accessibility is needed.

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