Automation Inspector (Extension)

Developer tool for exercising the Chrome Automation API Automation Inspector

An inspection tool for Chrome Automation API

The Chrome Automation API is an experimental accessibility API that allows developers to access the automation tree and events for the browser. The tree resembles the DOM tree, but only exposes the semantic structure of a page. It can be used to programmatically interact with a page by examining names, roles, and states, listening for events, and performing actions on nodes.

One of Chrome Automation's main purposes is to enable the development of assistive technologies written in JavaScript, for Chrome OS. This is similar to how MSAA, IA2 and UIA are used on Windows, and AX Accessibility is used for OS X. It can also be used by extensions, but because it is experimental, it is currently available only on the dev channel and to internal assistive technologies such as ChromeVox.

Automation Inspector is used to exercise the Automation API, to inspect the entire Chrome OS desktop, or to inspect a specific browser tab.

This tool is mainly useful for the following types of people:

Developers/QA working on Chrome accessibility support Developers/QA working on assistive technologies for Chrome OS