[g-a-devel] RFC: AtkText simplification

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

Hey all.

As many of us know, AtkText is one thorough interface. :) So thorough,
in fact, that it boggles the minds of those implementing it and sends
many others running to create PangoLayout instances so that they can use
GailTextUtil to do the implementation for them.

So I am here to propose we simplify AtkText and do it *now* i.e. while
we are very early in the GNOME cycle. In particular, I would like to
suggest for your consideration the following two changes:

1. Deprecate atk_text_get_text_{before,after}_offset()
2. Deprecate the TEXT_BOUNDARY_FOO_{START,END}

In the first case, clients such as Orca would use (through AT-SPI2)
atk_text_get_text_at_offset(). If the text before or after a given
offset were desired, clients would make a second call having gotten the
needed offset from the first call.

In the second case, clients such as Orca would use (through AT-SPI2) a
brand new set of TEXT_BOUNDARY_FOO boundaries. My guess is that we'd
want it to mimic the behavior of the current START results, but that
will require some investigation to be sure.

In order to facilitate this simplification getting under way, I will
remove Orca's use of atk_text_get_text_{before,after}_offset().

Comments?
--joanie