Accessibility (Screen Readers)
SftMask/DLL 7.0 ships with built-in Windows UI Automation (UIA) support. Users who rely on Narrator, NVDA, JAWS or any other UIA-compatible assistive technology can read and operate SftMask controls without the hosting application doing any work. No opt-in, no code change, no separate build.
What the screen reader sees:
| Control type | Edit. |
| Name | The control's caption text (with the ampersand accelerator prefix stripped for speech), if a caption is defined. |
| Value | The control's current contents, exposed through the Value pattern. The pattern supports reading and setting the text and reports the read-only state (the fLocked field). For password input (see chPswdChar and the <p mask token), the control reports IsPassword so screen readers do not speak the actual contents. |
| Patterns implemented | Value (read/write text, read-only state, password masking), ExpandCollapse (for the dropdown calendar). |
Event notifications raised automatically: value changed, keyboard focus changed.
There is nothing to turn on. The provider loads on demand the first time a UIA client queries the control, so there is no overhead for applications whose users never attach an assistive technology.
The main thing the application controls is the caption text - screen readers read it first, so a control with the caption "Invoice &Date:" announces itself much more usefully than an unnamed edit field.
Dark mode and Windows High Contrast are independent accessibility settings. SftMask honors both automatically (see SetDarkMode and SetHighContrastMode).
See Also Dark Mode | High Contrast | Built-In Caption
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