tk-uia

Make Tkinter applications readable by Windows screen readers and UI Automation.

Tk 8.6 exposes widgets to Windows accessibility with no names and mostly wrong control types: buttons are unnamed, labels read as images, and every themed ttk widget is an anonymous pane. tk_uia.enable(root) annotates each widget through MSAA, so screen readers such as NVDA, and UIA tools such as Inspect.exe or pytest-uia, see named, correctly typed controls instead. No runtime dependencies, no C extension, no visible change to the window.

Install

Not on PyPI yet (RELEASING.md has the plan). Install from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/HuzPro/tk-uia
cd tk-uia
pip install -e .

Windows only. On other platforms enable() returns UNSUPPORTED and does nothing, so cross-platform code can call it unconditionally.

Usage

import tkinter as tk
import tk_uia

root = tk.Tk()
root.title("Tasks")
tk.Label(root, text="Task list").pack()
tk.Button(root, text="New Task", command=create).pack()

tk_uia.enable(root)
root.mainloop()

Measured from a separate process. COVERAGE.md has the table for every widget class in both toolkits. COOKBOOK.md builds a real form end to end.

Features

• One call covers the whole application, including windows opened later.
• Names inferred from -text, correct control types for classic tk and ttk.
• A declared textvariable is followed automatically: the name or value stays current with no further code.
• label_for(label, entry) records which caption names which field. infer_names_from_layout(root) retrofits an existing dialog in one call and reports every name it chose.
• describe(root) prints an audit of what a client gets and what is missing, with a reason and a fix per widget. Usable as data for CI gating.
• Notebook tabs become real, clickable tab controls.
• Detects Tk 9.1's native accessibility (TIP 733) and stands down.

Limitations

• In-process only. You can annotate your own application, not someone else's.
• InvokePattern on a Tk button does nothing; assistive technology and test tools must click. See the guide.
• Listbox rows and Treeview items are not exposed. Notebook tabs are.
• Verified against the UI Automation tree, which is what screen readers consume. Not yet verified against NVDA speech output; that is the top roadmap item.

Documentation

License

MIT