[Libreoffice] IAccessible2 - Windows (from libreoffice-accessibility)

[Mathias Bauer]

Am 27.09.2011 17:14, schrieb Fridrich Strba:

> On 27/09/11 16:41, Michael Meeks wrote:
>> 	It is very useful for archiving & understanding on the off chance that
>> IBM don't meet their commitment to do the right thing and get this into
>> Apache in a form that we can easily consume.
> 
> At ODF PlugFest in Berlin this July, IBM's Rob Weir announced that
> although they will make that code public, they will not do the AOOo
> integration of that code. Nevertheless they would support/advise anybody
> who would try to do such an integration.

You must have misunderstood Robert Weir (it's quite easy to do so ;-)).
Here's a recent quote from the AOOo dev list:

> Accessibility is something IBM has taken very seriously with Symphony,
> as with our other products.  We've worked with standards bodies,
> assistive technology vendors and others to advance the state of
> accessibility in this area.
> 
> We'd love to see this same support in OOo and LO and in every other
> derivative product.  That is why we contributed the code to OOo
> several years ago.  Of course, integrating this into the current AOOo
> (or LO) trunk is non-trivial.   IMHO, we're unlikely to integrate
> IAccessible2 for AOOo 3.4.0. But it is something we should look at for
> the next major release.
> 
> As mentioned elsewhere, we have good IAccessible2 support in Symphony
> today.  And we've already announced that we will be contributing the
> Symphony source code to Apache.  Something we'll need to figure out is
> the least complicated way to merge IAccessible2 support, as well as
> other desired UI and other enhancements from Symphony, into future
> Apache releases.
Though he talks about the "next major release", I'm pretty sure that if
both communities (LO as well as AOOo) show huge interest to get it
integrated ASAP after the AOOo 3.4 release, there should be ways to make
that a priority.

Of course Robert Weir won't do that integration himself ;-), but most
probably one of the new IBM ex-Oracle devs that now work on AOOo. Or
somebody else, in case there would be someone who can't wait to get it
earlier than 3.4.

AFAIK the heavy lifting already was done and the code is available in
some cws. That's as close as it can become for an integration into Libre
Office. I doubt that pulling from AOOo's svn would be easier than
pulling from some hg cws.

If you are interested in getting that integrated into LO and especially
if you want to get it integrated as soon and as smooth as possible, some
cooperation might make that easier.

Regards,
Mathias