As I understand it, X11 has many inherent security concerns, including programs being able to read the contents of other windows and intercept keystrokes. Wayland addresses these concerns but at the moment breaks certain functions like screen readers, cursor warping, and the ability of a program to resize its own window.
I am curious as to how the display protocols of MacOS and Windows handle these situations differently. How does a program in those operating systems gain permission to read the contents of other windows, if at all? What is to be done in Wayland for these functions to be more seamless or are there inherent obstacles?
I don’t know how it works on a technical level, but:
On macOS the app can request permission. In case of screen reading, it can’t just ask with a simple allow/deny prompt like with many other permissions (e.g. location), but most app requiring permission usually open the system settings app at the correct page (accessibility > screen readers or something). This page shows a list of all installed applications that specify that they have screen reader capabilities. The user can check a box next to the app’s name to allow screen reading.
On Windows, a “classic” win32 application can essentially see anything running under the same user as itself. It can probably capture windows of applications running as another user (administrator), but afaik it can’t send keystrokes to them. Appx apps generally have a permission system, but I’m not sure how screen readers are handled.
I’d like to add that, unless your user account has permission to enable this in macOS, you can’t enable it.