Accessibility API status w/e 24-Nov

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

Hi All:

As promised, the weekly 'API report':

(ATK) First, Atk.  

We are on a 'notify' status for API changes that do not impact
non-accessibility libraries, until Dec. 7.  I report all API changes in
the past 10 days, since that's approximately from the initial freeze:

(1) signals and properties:

(a) 'AtkObject::model-changed' property was moved from atkobject to
atktable, and 
    'AtkObject::selection-changed' was replaced by properties 
    AtkText::text-selection-changed and AtkSelection::selection-changed,
to be consistent with 
    their use.

(b) state change notifications were changed from a property basis 
    (property 'accessible-state') to a signal basis (signal
'state_change', with details for
    the state types).

(c) new properties were added (to be used by implementors of
AtkComponent), for
    associating Z-order info with UI components: 
    AtkObject::accessible-component-layer and
AtObject::accessible-component-mdi-zorder.

(d) enums for properties:

AtkLayer: values ATK_LAYER_INVALID, ATK_LAYER_BACKGROUND,
ATK_LAYER_CANVAS, ATK_LAYER_WIDGET, ATK_LAYER_MDI, ATK_LAYER_POPUP,
ATK_LAYER_OVERLAY.  OVERLAY is reserved for future use.

(e) removed state ATK_STATE_COLLAPSED as redundant with
!ATK_STATE_EXPANDED.

(2) Method tweaks/changes:

(a) atk_relation_type_from_string() was changed to
atk_relation_type_for_name() for consistency with other "for_name" API.

(b) removed unsupportable AtkImplementor* param from AtkKeySnoopFunc
definition.

(c) made gchar * methods atk_get_toolkit_version() and
atk_get_toolkit_name() 
    G_CONST_RETURN.

(3) Method additions:

(a) added atk_relation_type_register() and atk_relation_type_get_name() 
[complementary to type_for_name()]

(b) Z-order info for components (now in atk_object_get_layer() and
atk_object_get_mdi_zorder(), but possibly better either in atk_component
or restricted to the property interfaces.

(3) Marshallers: (not really API changes)

(a) added atk_marshal_VOID__INT_INT.


We are hopeful that these are among the very last API revisions to ATK.

(AT-SPI)

at-spi is not yet stabilized.  As of now its only clients are its own
demo, test, and util code, and the projects GOK and Gnopernicus.

(1) cspi:

(a) lots of header revisions.  A number of patches from Michael Meeks
have gone in, in part to clean and hide CORBA dependencies further from
the client "simple C bindings".

(b) the main revisions to methods in cspi were bugfixes:
AccessibleTable_refAt was changed to AccessibleTable_getAccessibleAt, to
match the IDL and our cspi conventions; AccessibleRelation_getTarget now
takes a second (int) parameter as required, and
AccessibleRelation_getNTargets() was added.

(2) libspi: nothing major here, except minor header revisions and a
consistency rename or two.  

(3) idl: Added CORBA typedefs for  Accessibility_EventType and
Accessibility_DeviceEvent.  Made DeviceEventListener inherit from
Bonobo::Unknown.  Added DeviceEventListener:notifyListenerSync and
DeviceEventListener:notifyListenerAsync.  Made Accessibility_Relation
derive from Bonobo::Unknown.

OTHER GNOME APIS:

We have identified an issue in a pending GTK+ patch which will cause an
API change.  This patch has been in the queue for about 9 weeks now, and
is critical to providing accessible themes.  I will send a separate
email regarding the API.

We are reviewing the bonobo-control API this week to determine whether
the required accessibility support (already in IDL) can be supported via
existing API.

-Bill