The Windows 7 platform makes it easier to build solutions that are accessible to more users and that meet or exceed accessibility compliance standards. The Assistive Technology Vendor (ATV) community can now build solutions for a broader variety of client applications, and application developers will find it easier to build and validate accessible user interfaces.
Windows 7 also makes supporting multiple global languages easier than in previous versions of Windows. From the time a user selects a language and location, Windows 7 presents dates, numbers, calendars, collations, and other information using the cultural conventions that customers expect.
Windows Automation
Windows 7 delivers a rich, standards-based automation layer that is extended for native applications. It builds on Microsoft Active Accessibility and Microsoft UI Automation. It’s also designed to work with industry standards such as the W3C Web ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Application) and Section 508 Specifications.
UI Automation offers improved performance by introducing faster unmanaged automation proxies for Win32 controls and legacy Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) applications, and better and faster UI Automation event and proxy registrations. New extensibility features extend control patterns, properties, and custom events.
Accessibility Support Tools
The UI Accessibility Checker is a convenient graphical user interface tool that enables developers and testers to rapidly verify whether their UI conforms to key accessibility requirements, such as MSAA (which verifies child-parent relationships or bounding rectangles) and UI Automation programmatic access, event generation, layout, and keyboard navigation.
UIA Verify is a test automation framework that facilitates manual and automated testing of the Microsoft UI Automation Provider implementation of a control or application. These two new tools enable developers to test accessibility implementations and functionality in applications that use either MSAA or UI Automation. Both tools are available via CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com), a Web site that Microsoft created to host open-source projects and to better serve the developer community.
Improved Multi-Language User Interface Support and Linguistic Services
Windows 7 provides developers with a standard method to prepare their applications for the international market by delivering an improved multi-language user interface support and linguistic services that they can use in their applications.
Extended Linguistic Services is a new feature in Windows 7 that allows developers to use the same small set of APIs to leverage a variety of advanced linguistic functionality. By using Extended Linguistic Services APIs in Windows 7, developers can auto-detect the language of any piece of Unicode text and use that information to help make smarter user experience choices for customers around the world. Extended Linguistic Services also offers built in transliteration support that converts text from one writing system to another. For example, developers can now auto-convert text between Simplified and Traditional Chinese to help people communicate with each other across linguistic boundaries. By using Extended Linguistic Services APIs, developers will be able to use existing Extended Linguistic Services as well as pick up new services in the future without learning new code.
RICHER APPLICATION EXPERIENCES
Windows 7 enables developers to create distinctive and intuitive applications that significantly enhance discoverability, usability, and sheer enjoyment. New methods of desktop integration put application functionality right at the user’s fingertips, and Windows Explorer and Libraries provide easy access to high-value information. The Scenic Ribbon control and animation framework make it easier to build interactive and appealing user interfaces. New touch APIs enable natural interactions through multi-touch and finger-panning, and manipulation and inertia APIs enable impressive visual effects.
Rapid advances in hardware and software technology are also driving higher-fidelity user experiences. Windows 7 brings these advances under developer control with new and flexible APIs that take full advantage of the technology, while making it even easier to develop compelling applications.
Intuitive User Experience
For the first time, Windows 7 allows developers and their end-users to control their computers by touching the screen. Touch and multi-touch features provide a natural, intuitive way for users to interact with PCs. The developer platform includes high-level gesture APIs, as well as low-level touch messages and touch input APIs. The top-level UI elements, such as the Start menu and taskbar, have larger targets than previous Windows releases, making them easier to select with a finger instead of a mouse. Visual feedback is provided for tap and double tap. Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer 8 are both touch friendly and easily integrated with Windows 7 applications.
Multi-Touch Gestures, and Manipulation and Inertia APIs
Windows 7 features improved touch and gesture support, empowering developers to quickly and easily create unique application experiences that go beyond simple mouse pointing, clicking, and dragging. The new multi-touch APIs support rich gestures, such as pan, zoom, and rotate. All gestures provide direct visual feedback, and interact with underlying content in a natural and intuitive manner. For example, a zoom gesture centers the view at the location of the gesture. Lower-level touch input APIs are also available for custom gesture definition and advanced touch-response experiences. Windows 7 provides a development platform that gives developers the tools they need to develop creative applications for multi-touch input devices, by processing user input from multi-touch devices and improving the user interface. The result is more intuitive environments, which enable innovations in PC interaction.
Windows 7 also provides platform support for object manipulation and inertia processing. A rich set of manipulation functions enable you to stretch, resize, or rotate multiple objects concurrently and in very fine granularity. For example, multiple digital photographs could be cropped, resized, and rotated in a single session using touch based gestures.
Windows 7 includes inertia APIs which simulate inertia when objects are moved, working hand-in-hand with the manipulation APIs. For example, in a photo application, you can use the manipulation APIs to let users rotate, resize, and move photos. Similarly, if a user "tosses" a photo, the inertia APIs provide natural interaction and enable the photo to coast to a stop or bounce off the borders of the application’s window.
In many common applications, touch features are more useful for navigation than for text selection. With extended touch APIs, a developer’s application can choose to enable panning rather than dragging. For example, if you created an application that uses multi-touch gestures for users playing music, you could allow these users to simply slide a finger up or down to adjust the volume, change songs, or download a file. No scrolling required.
Windows 7 provides endless opportunities for developers who are interested in creating applications for next-generation PCs. Best of all, it does the hard work of checking for scroll bars and implementing the panning semantics. Applications also receive a richer set of events and feedback for customized control of gestures than they did in previous versions of Windows.
In Windows 7, new touch experiences are enabled by interaction models that access lower-level touch input messages, and provide customized responses to combinations of touch messages. The platform supports receiving raw touch input data for scenarios like multi-touch painting applications and custom gestures within an application. You can use the platform support for touch or create your own original, multi-touch experiences.
Handwriting and Ink
With the proliferation of Tablet PCs in the market, Tablet features are becoming part of mainstream computing. In Windows 7, touch and writing are first-class user experiences. Windows 7 improves the pen experience by providing greater accuracy and speed. Handwriting input is improved and more languages are supported. The Text Input Panel offers predictive text for greater speed of input and correction. Handwriting accuracy is improved through personalization in all languages, custom dictionaries, and breakthroughs in East Asian language recognition. The improved interaction model delivers a better reading experience on the small, high-resolution screens common in portable computers.
The Text Input panel features easy text correction
Math Recognition
The new Math Recognition feature enables users to enter math into applications by means of handwriting—the most natural and efficient way of entering mathematical expressions. The functionality is provided by two UI components. Math Input Panel is a stand-alone Windows accessory that works with any math-aware application. Math Input Control is integrated into applications through its API.
Underlying the UI components is the Math Recognizer. This engine recognizes handwritten mathematical expression and translates the result into MathML format for applications to use. The correction experience has been improved to help users make corrections faster.
Math Recognition enables users to enter math into applications by means of handwriting
Pen Input Diagramming
The updated Ink Analysis APIs significantly speed up the development of ink-enabled applications. New recognition capabilities make it easier to integrate basic shape recognition features and enable ink applications that were not possible before Windows 7.
The new shape-recognition engine enables applications to accurately interpret a much larger set of ink constructs than in previous versions. The shapes supported by the Ink Analysis APIs represent building blocks for more complex structures, such as flow charts, block diagrams, and organization charts. There is also more support for client applications to provide contextual information to assist with recognition.
Handwriting with Personalized Custom Dictionary
For many scenarios, good handwriting accuracy requires a dictionary tailored to the domain of use. Windows 7 introduces custom dictionaries, which enable better handwriting recognition for specialized vocabularies. Developers who are writing vertical applications — for example, a medical prescription notepad —can now add specific terms to their application, such as drug names.
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