Hi
My comments were not a criticism of at-spi but rather the need were
possible to unify accessibilities standard across platforms for the
simple reason that if software vendors have to worry about one
accessibility stack it is better than two or three, as Linux as very
small user based it is always left behind by the main vendors.
In Windows there is MSAA which is a subset of both iAccessible2 and
Microsoft own UI automation.
There is also Java accessibility standard which is only supported (and
even this is not great) by NVDA. This applies to Swing components, IBM
Java SWT components work great in Windows anybody using Eclipse in
Windows will know how accessible it is (I believe it is not bad in Linux
either but not tried it recently), it relies on the native gui
components for the OS which is a great approach.
So more than one standard can co-exist as time moves on there is a need
for new features and compatibility.
I heard various stories on the feasibility of implementing iAccessible2
in Linux as well including the possibility of building a bridge to
at-spi but I know very little about either.
Anyway both myself and Bill Cox are very interested in cross platform
accessibility solutions and working on a non related system right now.
It is our desire to look at this issue at some stage in the not too
distant future and we will keep you posted and seek other developers who
might be interested.
Regards
Isaac
On 07/06/2011 13:47, Piñeiro wrote:
On 06/07/2011 03:36 AM, Isaac Porat wrote:
Hi
I was asking the same question a couple of years ago. My
understanding after looking a bit into the issue is that IBM
consulted at the time key people in accessibility in Linux (there
still some minutes of these meetings) to make both interfaces as
close as possible which as indicated it is somewhat the case.
Reading between the lines, iAccessible2 was not accepted for Linux
because of both companies and Linux vs Windows politics. the
interfaces are close but not the same. At the time perhaps if
somebody on the Linux side took a more favourable approach the
communication layer in iAccessible2 implementations would have been
properly separated. As it happened my understanding from Bil Cox who
looked at the issue in more details in the Windows world the
implementation and communication layers can be mixed with vendors who
want to support both Windows and Linux so in practice they need to a
good extend maintain two separate stacks and with the ratio of
Windows to Linux users of something like 90 to 1 Linux support not
suprisingly is always behind.
It is true that there are people that thinks that moving iAccessible2
to Linux should be the path. But AFAIK, the reason of why it wasn't
done was not due politics. It was in order to avoid to "reinvent the
wheel". Linux had already a working accessible interface, ATK,
implemented by a lot of actors on Linux (gtk, firefox, etc). So moving
to iAccessible2 means to change all in order to move to a (as already
said) really similar technology, with similar features.
But I also understand that having "just one thing" would have a lot of
advantages.
BTW: AFAIK, this is not "one is better that two". AFAIK MacOS doesn't
use ATK or Ia2:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Accessibility/Conceptual/AccessibilityMacOSX/OSXAXModel/OSXAXmodel.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40001078-CH208-TPXREF101
Or I'm wrong?
BR
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