NOTES ON EVALUATING JAVA ACCESSIBILITY

While you evaluate this release of the Java Accessibility Utilties, please 
keep a few things in mind:

- There are known problems (see below).
- Even if you can't use the API, we still want your feedback on it.
- The API of the Java Accessibility Utilities *may* change (primarily 
  because of your feedback).

This file aims to help you give us meaningful feedback and avoid
wasting your time on stuff that we already know is broken.  It has these
sections:

Please Don't Tell Us    
	Lists stuff that might or might not work properly, but that we 
	aren't currently seeking feedback on.

Known Problems
	Lists problems we are working on.

How to Give Feedback
	The e-mail address to use, and what to put in bug reports.

-------------
PLEASE DON'T TELL US
-------------

EXAMPLES
Because we're concentrating on improving the Java Accessibility API,
we don't have time to worry about getting the examples exactly right.
If something in the examples shows a problem with the Java Accessibility
Utilities or the Java Accessibility API implementation in the Java(TM)
Foundation Classes, however, we want to hear about it.

THINGS WE ALREADY KNOW ABOUT
Please read the KNOWN PROBLEMS section in this file for information
about bugs and problems we already know about.  Since we already know
about them, there's no need to remind us they are there.

-------------
KNOWN PROBLEMS
-------------

NOT ALL THE SWING COMPONENTS IMPLEMENT THE JAVA ACCESSIBILITY API
We have completed a FIRST PASS at implementing interface Accessible
directly on nearly all of the Swing components.  This first pass is
just a start and does not reflect what will be in the final release.
For those components we have implemented interface Accessible on,
however, we *do* want to hear about bugs in the implementation.

THERE ARE OCCASIONAL HANGS IN APPLETS
There are situations where a deadlock can occur when running an
assistive technology with an applet.  We're investigating this
problem and hope to have a fix soon.  In the meantime, you can
help prevent deadlocks by reading and understanding the Threads
and Swing document at the following URL:
http://www.javasoft.com/products/jfc/swingdoc/threads.html.

LISTENING FOR ANCESTOR EVENTS CAN RESULT IN NULL POINTER EXCEPTIONS
When listening for AncestorEvents using SwingEventMonitor, you
may sometimes get null pointer exceptions.  We are currently looking
into this problem.

DOES NOT WORK WITH JDK1.2
The Java Accessibility Utilities use the JDK1.1 Java Accessibility API 
that is in the com.sun.java.accessibility package.  As a result, they
currently don't use the JDK1.2 Java Accessibility API that is in the
java.awt.accessibility package.  We are working on a solution for this.

--------------------
HOW TO GIVE FEEDBACK
--------------------
Please send your feedback to this e-mail address:

	access@sun.com

If you've found a bug, you can help us greatly by including the
following information in your e-mail:

- A program or code snippet that shows the problem.

- The platform you're using.

- The setting of your CLASSPATH environment variable.

- A backtrace, if appropriate.  This will tell us what the program is
  doing when the bug occurs. To generate a backtrace, do this:
  
  1. Go to the shell window in which you entered the 'java' command.

  2. Make sure it has the keyboard focus and that the interpreter
     ('java' command) isn't a background process.

  3. Enter the appropriate character:

         Control-\		(Solaris)
         Control-Break		(Win 95/NT)

  4. A bunch of text should be displayed in the window.  Please
     put a copy of it into your e-mail.