Getting Accessibility to Work with Statically Linked, Cross-Compiled Windows 32 QT 5.2 Applications

Background

Using Ubuntu Studio 13.10
Built QT 5.2.0 Beta 1 for both Linux and Windows (static linking)
Built QT Creator 3.0 for Linux
Created a New Application

Drew a UI, didn't write any code, Ensured that the Accessible Names were correctly assigned. The UI contains:

Menu
QTextEdit
QLineEdit
QPlainTextEdit
QTextBrowser

Modified the project file:

QT       += core gui

greaterThan(QT_MAJOR_VERSION, 4): QT += widgets

QTPLUGIN += qtaccessiblewidgets
QMAKE_LFLAGS += -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++

TARGET = SimpleBox
TEMPLATE = app
DEFINES += STATIC

SOURCES += main.cpp\
        mainwindow.cpp

HEADERS += mainwindow.h

FORMS    += mainwindow.ui

Compiled for Windows, and used with Jaws 14.

Noted that the libgcc and libstdc++ dll files still appear to be required
The menu speaks, but the braille display does not show anything
The QTextEdit does not speak contents, or show anything on the braille display
The QLineEdit does not speak contents, or show anything on the braille display
The QPlainTextEdit does not speak contents, or show anything on the braille display
The QTextBrowser does not show anything on the braille display, but Jaws 14 does read out the contents.

Tried running with NVDA, with exactly the same results.

Preliminary Research

Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN

Done some background reading into the way you should configure your code, and found references to:

QTPLUGIN += qtaccessiblewidgets
Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN(qtaccessiblewidgets)

Well, the first (QTPLUGIN) appears to be necessary, and when included, the Makefile generated by qmake already includes the -lqtaccessiblewidgets library:

Extract from Makefile

LIBS = -lmingw32 -lqtmain -L/opt/i686-w64-mingw32/lib -L/opt/i686-w64-mingw32/plugins/accessible -lqtaccessiblewidgets -lQt5Widgets -L/opt/i686-w64-mingw32/plugins/platforms -lqwindows -lwinspool -lshlwapi -lQt5PlatformSupport -lQt5Gui -lcomdlg32 -loleaut32 -limm32 -l winmm -lglu32 -lopengl32 -lgdi32 -lQt5Core -lole32 -luuid -lws2_32 -ladvapi32 -lshell32 -luser32 -lkernel32

The second line (Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN), which is supposed to be added into the main.cpp file gives the following error:

Undefined reference to qt_static_plugin_qtaccessiblewidgets

This is understandable, as there is no such function in the qtaccessible library. The actual function name is qt_static_plugin_AccessibleFactory, and this Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN statement is automatically generated by qmake, and put in the file xxxxx_plugin_import.cpp in the build area.

Current Understanding: QTPLUGIN is required in the .pro file, but the Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN line is now automatically generated by qmake, and the line is not required.

Tried With Dynamic Linking

As there were problems with the 5.2.0 Beta 1 version of QT (unable to compile due to incorrect source code requiring code to be patched), I downloaded the 5.2.1 release (Feb 5th 2014). This version claims to be executable compatible with 5.2.0 - we will see.

Re-built QT5 (in the source directory), with the following configuration:

./configure -shared -release -opensource -confirm-license \
      -make libs -nomake tests -nomake examples \
      -no-compile-examples \
      -accessibility \
      -no-sse2 -no-sse3 -no-ssse3 -no-sse4.1 -no-sse4.2 \
      -no-avx -no-avx2 -no-neon -no-mips_dsp -no-mips_dspr2 \
      -no-gif \
      -optimized-qmake -reduce-relocations -no-pch \
      --xplatform=win32-g++ \
      -device-option CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32- \
      --prefix=/opt/i686-w64-mingw32-shared | tee config.log 2>&1