Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Computer accessibility framework}}

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'''Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface''' ('''AT-SPI''') is a platform-neutral framework for providing bi-directional communication between [[assistive technologies]] (AT) and applications.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/accessibility/atk/at-spi/overview| title = ATK/AT-SPI SIG Overview | accessdate = 2014-04-10| archive-date = 2014-04-13| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140413132602/http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/accessibility/atk/at-spi/overview| url-status = dead}}</ref> It is the ''de facto'' standard for providing accessibility to free and open desktops, like [[Linux]] or [[OpenBSD]], led by the [[GNOME project|GNOME Project]].

One common nomenclature to explain an accessibility framework is a usual client-server architecture. In that way, [[Assistive technology#Computer accessibility|Assistive Technologies]] (ATs), such as [[screen readers]], would be the clients of that framework, and computer applications would be the server. In this architecture, client and server need to communicate with each other, usually using the [[Inter-process communication|IPC]] technology of the platform. Ideally the accessibility framework exposes this to the client and server in a transparent way.

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==Implementations==

AT-SPI was originally designed for using [[Common Object Request Broker Architecture]], an object-based [[Inter-process communication|IPC]]/[[Remote procedure call|RPC]] technology, for its transport protocol. The AT-SPI specification itself was tied to CORBA as it was defined in CORBA [[Interface description language|IDL]]. AT-SPI used the GNOME project's own fast and lightweight CORBA implementation, [[ORBit]], and its own framework for creating CORBA components, [[Bonobo (component model)|Bonobo]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Orca Documentation Series|url=https://www.mit.edu/~rjc/orca-docs.html|accessdate=2014-04-10|archive-date=2014-04-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140413132918/http://www.mit.edu/~rjc/orca-docs.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The GNOME project decided that the 3.0 release willwould be free of ORBit and Bonobo, meaning that a [[D-Bus]] AT-SPI solution was required.<ref>{{cite web|title=Planning for GNOME 3.0|url=https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/Plan|accessdate=2014-04-10}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=GNOME 3 Porting Guide|url=https://wiki.gnome.org/DevGnomeOrg/Gnome3PortingGuide|accessdate=2014-04-10}}</ref> In an effort to move AT-SPI forward, a D-Bus project was started in November 2006. This took the form of a performance and design review available on the GNOME wiki. Work began on the implementation in May 2007.<ref>{{cite web|title=Accessibility/ATK/AT-SPI/AT-SPI on D-Bus|url=https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/en/AT-SPI_on_D-Bus#Background|accessdate=2014-04-10}}</ref> The D-Bus version of AT-SPI, AT-SPI version 2, was released along with GNOME 3.0 in April 2011.<ref>{{cite web|title=GNOME 3.0 released: better for users, developers|url=http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better-for-users-developers-3/|accessdate=2014-04-10}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Git source code released with GNOME 3.0|url=https://git.gnome.org/browse/at-spi2-atk/log/?h=gnome-3-0|accessdate=2014-04-10}}</ref>

==Support==