[Accessibility] Reviewing IAccessible2 & working to ensure that AT-SPI and IAccessible2 evolve in mutually compatible ways

[Li Yuan]

Peter Korn wrote:
> Dear Pete, Li, and the Open Accessibility community,
>
> During the con-call earlier today, we discussed the upcoming vote on 
> IAccessible2.  During the discussion, we understood that we had 
> essentially these two goals for the two accessibility interfaces with 
> respect to eachother:
>
>   1. We would like to ensure that AT-SPI and IAccessible2 evolve going
>      forward in a way that is as compatible/aligned as possible, in
>      order to
>   2. We would like it to be as easy as possible for cross-platform apps
>      (e.g. OpenOffice, Firefox/Mozilla, KDE & GNOME generally) to be
>      accessible on multiple platforms (Windows via IAccessible2 & UNIX
>      via AT-SPI) with the minimum of additional work
>
> While Willie has provided some review and feedback to the list (which 
> has been discussed via e-mail), we felt it would be good for the 
> AT-SPI maintainer (Li Yuan) to also provide his review & feedback - 
> especially given the goals of helping ensure that evolution of these 
> two accessibility frameworks were as compatible/aligned as is 
> reasonable to do.  I also suggested that it would be helpful - again 
> in service of these goals - to have a summary of the changes made and 
> the reasons for the changes in IAccessible2 since it branched from the 
> UNO Accessibility framework from which it came.
>
> To that end, Pete - could you please produce such a summary for 
> IAccessible2?  Likewise, Li - can you summarize the key 
> changes/additions to AT-SPI over the last 2 years, and what they were 
> in service of?
 From interface side, the key change for at-spi in the past 2 years is 
collection interface.
>
>
> I think with these summaries (and with your review of Pete's summary 
> and the IAccessible2 spec. Li), we will be in a good place to both 
> vote on IAccessible2 becoming a formal specification of the Open A11y 
> group and also to ensure that both specifications continue to evolve 
> in compatible ways.
>
I am glad to. But it may take some time. I am working on other 
accessibility issues now.

Thanks,
Li