JAWS does not always read Swing menus

Question

I have come across a problem that involves JAWS 4.51 and Java menus in Internet Explorer.
I have a Java application that has a JMenuBar. The menu bar contains several JMenus that in turn contain several JMenuItems.
When navigating through a menu, JAWS reads every JMenuItem. However, once a disabled JMenuItem is reached, JAWS no longer reads the JMenuItems below the disabled one in the open JMenu.
The problem occurs only in Internet Explorer on "plain" menu items that follow a disabled menu item. The problem does not affect "complex" menu items, such as those that open sub menus.
I can only reproduce this problem in Internet Explorer 6. Netscape Communicator 7, Web Start clients and a command line launch do not suffer from this problem. Also, JAWS 4.02 is fine as well; only 4.51 has this problem.
Attached at the end is a sample application that recreates the issue. You'll notice in the sample application that JAWS will not read "A check box menu item" and "Another one" while it will read "A submenu."
Does anyone have a solution to this? Thanks a lot!
Sample application:
======================================================
Note: The code below is a modification of the Sun menu tutorial found at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/menu.html
middle.gif can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/example-1dot4/images/middle.gif
MenuLookDemoApplet.java:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.JMenu;
import javax.swing.JMenuItem;
import javax.swing.JCheckBoxMenuItem;
import javax.swing.JRadioButtonMenuItem;
import javax.swing.ButtonGroup;
import javax.swing.JMenuBar;
import javax.swing.KeyStroke;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JApplet;
/* MenuLookDemoApplet.java is a 1.4 application that requires images/middle.gif. */
* This class exists solely to show you what menus look like.
* It has no menu-related event handling.
public class MenuLookDemoApplet extends JApplet {
    JTextArea output;
    JScrollPane scrollPane;
    public JMenuBar createMenuBar() {
        JMenuBar menuBar;
        JMenu menu, submenu;
        JMenuItem menuItem;
        JRadioButtonMenuItem rbMenuItem;
        JCheckBoxMenuItem cbMenuItem;
        //Create the menu bar.
        menuBar = new JMenuBar();
        //Build the first menu.
        menu = new JMenu("A Menu");
        menu.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_A);
        menu.getAccessibleContext().setAccessibleDescription(
                "The only menu in this program that has menu items");
        menuBar.add(menu);
        //a group of JMenuItems
        menuItem = new JMenuItem("A text-only menu item",
                                 KeyEvent.VK_T);
        //menuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_T); //used constructor instead
        menuItem.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(
                KeyEvent.VK_1, ActionEvent.ALT_MASK));
        menuItem.getAccessibleContext().setAccessibleDescription(
                "This doesn't really do anything");
        menu.add(menuItem);
        ImageIcon icon = createImageIcon("images/middle.gif");
        menuItem = new JMenuItem("Both text and icon", icon);
        menuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_B);
        menu.add(menuItem);
        menuItem = new JMenuItem(icon);
        menuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_D);
        menu.add(menuItem);
        //a group of radio button menu items
        menu.addSeparator();
        ButtonGroup group = new ButtonGroup();
        rbMenuItem = new JRadioButtonMenuItem("A radio button menu item");
        rbMenuItem.setSelected(true);
        rbMenuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_R);
        group.add(rbMenuItem);
        menu.add(rbMenuItem);
        rbMenuItem = new JRadioButtonMenuItem("Another one");
        rbMenuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_O);
        group.add(rbMenuItem);
        menu.add(rbMenuItem);
        rbMenuItem.setEnabled(false);   //@dpb
        //a group of check box menu items
        menu.addSeparator();
        cbMenuItem = new JCheckBoxMenuItem("A check box menu item");
        cbMenuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_C);
        menu.add(cbMenuItem);
        cbMenuItem = new JCheckBoxMenuItem("Another one");
        cbMenuItem.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_H);
        menu.add(cbMenuItem);
        //a submenu
        menu.addSeparator();
        submenu = new JMenu("A submenu");
        submenu.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_S);
        menuItem = new JMenuItem("An item in the submenu");
        menuItem.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(
                KeyEvent.VK_2, ActionEvent.ALT_MASK));
        submenu.add(menuItem);
        menuItem = new JMenuItem("Another item");
        submenu.add(menuItem);
        menu.add(submenu);
        //Build second menu in the menu bar.
        menu = new JMenu("Another Menu");
        menu.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_N);
        menu.getAccessibleContext().setAccessibleDescription(
                "This menu does nothing");
        menuBar.add(menu);
        return menuBar;
    public Container createContentPane() {
        //Create the content-pane-to-be.
        JPanel contentPane = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
        contentPane.setOpaque(true);
        //Create a scrolled text area.
        output = new JTextArea(5, 30);
        output.setEditable(false);
        scrollPane = new JScrollPane(output);
        //Add the text area to the content pane.
        contentPane.add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        return contentPane;
    /** Returns an ImageIcon, or null if the path was invalid. */
    protected static ImageIcon createImageIcon(String path) {
        java.net.URL imgURL = MenuLookDemo.class.getResource(path);
        if (imgURL != null) {
            return new ImageIcon(imgURL);
        } else {
            System.err.println("Couldn't find file: " + path);
            return null;
    public void init() {
        MenuLookDemoApplet demo = new MenuLookDemoApplet();
        setJMenuBar(demo.createMenuBar());
        setContentPane(demo.createContentPane());
applet.html:
<html>
<head>
    <title>Menu Test Page </title>
</head>
<body>
Here's the applet:
<applet code="MenuLookDemoApplet.class" width="300" height="300">
</applet>
</body>
</html>

Answer 1

Unfortunately the menu items are fully accessible (or so our internal accessibility tool claims). It doesn't seem to be a problem on that level, but I was hoping that perhaps something else was interfeering.
As for the JTable reading the previous cell, I've notice that it reads the last non-empty cell (regardless of whether it was the previous cell or not) when clicking or moving with the arrow keys to an empty cell. It works fine when clicking or moving to non-empty cells.
I don't have any empty cells in the actual application so I did not try to fix it. My suspicions are that either an event is not being fired or the selection position is not being updated on the empty cells.