[Kde-accessibility] Orca/KDE Integration

[Olaf Jan Schmidt]

[ Bill Haneman ]
> Using the existing CORBA transport, and existing atk-bridge libraries,
> would not impact KDE's API, except potentially KDE-based assistive
> technologies which might need to be at-spi clients.

I was indeed taking about the client API. All of the existing IDL-generated 
binding have a CORBA-specific API, so we would rule out D-Bus until KDE5 - 
unless we create something like KDE-cspi.

> I feel there were some alternatives there as well (as Gary's work with
> python bindings is showing).

I don't see how Gary's work can help us to stick with CORBA.

> That's why ATK makes more sense, from the point of view of application
> developers (i.e. user agents/productivity apps, I don't mean AT
> developers).

We already have an equivalent to atk in Qt, and we have discussed the 
application side of the equation often enough to know that the unsolved 
variables are on the client side.

> I don't agree with this.  There is only one gconf key of interest, and
> it can easily be made an XSetting (which is the preferred cross-desktop
> mechanism) instead.  All the relevant Gnome env variables are in the
> process of being made into xsettings already.  If KDE were to use/need
> them then it would help to prioritize this work, which we (gnome etc.)
> already believe ought to happen eventually.

This change needs to happen independently of whether we can convince you to 
help us move to D-Bus or not, so yes, please make them happen (as I already 
asked a few times).

> The activation issue is similarly something that is going away, as
> AT-SPI will use an Xatom in gnome 2.17 and later.

Good. Do you have a link to Xatom documentation?

> >There might be more, since we do not have a complete dependencies list of
> > the current AT-SPI code available.
>
> Why not?  I don't think this is so hard to produce.

The first time I asked you to produce one was two and a half years ago. The 
last time was a few weeks ago. Most times when I asked the question it 
resulted in a long general thread that took away a lot of my time, so I 
stopped asking at some point.

> I don't know what you're quoting from there.

In March I send an email to the accessibility-atspi list asking for a complete 
list dependency of the current at-spi implementation, and where I 
specifically asked about replacing Bonobo activation. Your reply was:
"We did not ever commit to removing libbonobo dependencies from AT-SPI.  We 
did however entertain a path whereby in future an AT-SPI implementation that 
did not link to CORBA and Bonobo _could_ be written in a way that was 
compliant with the proposed FSG standards."

This is exactly what we have started doing now.

http://lists.freestandards.org/pipermail/accessibility-atspi/2006-March/000244.html

> But there is no motivation or reason to remove any dependencies from the
> existing code unless we have agreement on sharing it.  From that point I
> believe we can usefully trim them a great deal.

OK, that is a big change from your position in March, where you replied to my 
question about removing unnecessary GNOME dependencies: "There is no reason 
for the current libraries to be changed in this way, because no value would 
be derived from such work.  There is much more urgent work that needs doing."

Olaf

-- 
Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility co-maintainer, open standards 
accessibility networker, Protestant theology student and webmaster of 
http://accessibility.kde.org/ and http://www.amen-online.de/