README

This is the Early Access Release of the Gnome Accessibility Project's
Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface.

*** Welcome to the Gnome Accessibility Project! ***

If you have not already done so, please visit 

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap 

for background information on accessibility, the Gnome 
Accessibility Project, mailing list info, and project status.

Contents of this package ==================================

The directories within this package are arranged as follows:

    idl : this directory contains the interface definitions
	(in Interface Definition Language) for the
	accessibility support interfaces exposed by
	the AT central registry, accessible applications,
	and UI components.
	Though IDL is often associated with CORBA, and this
	implementation of the at-spi is CORBA-based, these
	interfaces are not CORBA-specific, rather they define
	the abstract "contract" between accessible application
	and client assistive technology.  

	Assistive Technologies will not normally be concerned
	with the underlying implementation details of the IDL.

    libspi : this directory contains implementation-specific
	code which connects the in-process ATK interfaces
	(implemented by GTK+ and, potentially, by other 
	native-code UI toolkits) to the interprocess SPI.
	It also contains implementation code used by the
	central accessibility registry. These sources are
	used to build libspi.so, a shared object library which 
	is used by accessibility clients and servers alike. 
	This interfaces exposed in this library are ordinarily 
	not directly used by AT, but are used by the C bindings,
	thus AT must dynamically link to this library.

    registryd : this directory contains code specific to the
	central accessibility registry, and the registry
	executable is built in this directory.

    atk-bridge : this directory contains code that bridges 
	the at-spi to the GTK+ toolkit, and which is
	loaded at runtime by GTK+-based Gnome applications.
	The 'bridge' automatically registers GTK+-2.0
	applications with the accessibility registry, 
	and relays UI events from application to registry.
	It is also responsible for servicing requests from
	the registry to register handlers for specific event
	types.

    cspi : this directory contains the C bindings for use by
	ATs, and the code which adapts the implementation-specific
	code to the C bindings API.  The header file
	"spi.h" contains the API declarations used by AT clients.

    tests : this directory should be called 'examples', since
	it contains not only test programs, but examples
	of how to use the AT-SPI.  The sample program
	"simple-at.c" is currently the primary example of
	how the C bindings API should be used.

    docs : this directory contains documentation for the AT-SPI.
	Documentation is currently limited to API documentation
	for the C bindings API, and is built from sources
	via the 'gtk-doc' system.

Building the documentation ============================

Pre-built versions of the HTML documentation are available at 
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/tech-docs/at-spi-docs/book1.html.
However the documentation in the docs directory is the most up-to-date.
Building the docs requires docbook and jade, see the 'gtk-doc'
package (from Gnome CVS) for more information.

Use of the AT-SPI ======================================

Accessible applications will register with this registry service 
(via bonobo-activation) and adaptive/assistive technologies will 
register with the service as well, to indicate their interest in 
receiving UI events.  ATs can also use the registry's services 
programmatically to query accessible applications.

Running the test programs: ============================

At the moment the only clients and are two test at clients
('at' and 'simple-at').  There is also a test app ('app) in 
the 'tests' subdirectory.

If you have a working ORBit2/bonobo-activation installation you can 
run the tests after adding the registryd directory to the 
bonobo-activation directory list with bonobo-activation-sysconf,
or by installing Accessibility_Registry.server in your 
bonobo-activation 'servers' directory.

You can then run './at' and './app' from the 'test' directory, to see
'app' register as an application, and 'at' as a listening client.
Bonobo should take care of the job of bootstrapping the registry daemon
('registryd') for you.  These test programs use the bonobo/CORBA
C bindings directly.  

The third test program, "simple-at", is a better illustration of how 
most actual AT should use the at-spi, via the C bindings library 
(documented online at 
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/tech-docs/at-spi-docs/book1.html).
Though 'simple-at' will work with the test application 'app', 
a better demonstration of the AT-SPI can be made after installing
libspi and libcspi (via 'make install').  If you set the GTK_MODULES
environment variable to "gail:atk-bridge", any GTK+2.0
application run subsequently will register with the at-spi registry,
and 'simple-at' will register for and receive focus and 
buttonpress events from those applications.

At the moment application and at deregistration are not 100% reliable, 
so if you get you are advised to kill the registry daemon if you exit either 'at' or 'app' 
instances, via the 'bonobo-slay' command. You may run as many instances 
of each application or sample AT client as you like, concurrently - 
you may find it useful to do so in separate terminal windows.  

'at' connects to the registry as an event listener, then queries the
service for the number of virtual desktops (currently always 0 or 1),
and queries each desktop for the accessible applications it is running.
It then prints out the name of each such application (as reported by the
application's accessibility interfaces), and then waits to receive events.

'app' connects to the registry as an application, then dispatches an
event which the registry should relay to all registered listeners.
Thus instances of 'app' run after 'at' should cause the 'at' instances
to receive events.


-Bill