Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface (AT-SPI) is a toolkit

Toolkit

A toolkit is an assembly of tools; set of basic building units for graphical user interfaces.Things called toolkits include:* Abstract Window Toolkit* Accessibility Toolkit* Adventure Game Toolkit* B-Toolkit* Battlefield Mod Development Toolkit...

-neutral way of providing accessibility

Accessibility

Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity...

 facilities in applications

Application software

Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

. It was developed by the GNOME

GNOME

GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

 project. AT-SPI toolkits provide a logical representation of the content of the application. Helpful assistants like screen reader

Screen reader

A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen . This interpretation is then re-presented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or a Braille output device...

s or magnifier

Screen magnifier

A screen magnifier is software that interfaces with a computer's graphical output to present enlarged screen content. It is a type of assistive technology suitable for visually impaired people with some functional vision; visually impaired people with little or no functional vision usually use a...

s can then allow disabled persons to browse and interact with the applications.

AT-SPI can also be used for automated testing of user interfaces, with tools such as Linux Desktop Testing Project and Dogtail

Dogtail

Dogtail is an open source GUI testing tool and automation framework written in Python. It is Linux-based and is packaged with well known GNU/Linux distributions such as Fedora. It uses accessibility technologies to communicate with desktop applications...

.

It is currently supported by GTK+

GTK+

GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...

 2, Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

/Swing

Swing (Java)

Swing is the primary Java GUI widget toolkit. It is part of Oracle's Java Foundation Classes — an API for providing a graphical user interface for Java programs....

, the Mozilla

Mozilla

Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....

 suite, StarOffice

StarOffice

StarOffice, known briefly as Oracle Open Office before its discontinuation in 2010, is a proprietary office suite. It was originally developed by StarDivision which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999...

/OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...

 and Qt 4 (the framework used by KDE

KDE

KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...

).

The Free Standards Group

Free Standards Group

The Free Standards Group was an industry non-profit consortium chartered to primarily specify and drive the adoption of open source standards.All standards developed by the Free Standards Group were released under open terms and test suites, sample implementations and other software were released...

 is considering AT-SPI for adoption as a Linux standard.

External links

• at-spi, at the Free Software Directory
  Free Software Directory
  The Free Software Directory is a project of the Free Software Foundation . It catalogs free software that runs under free operating systems - particularly GNU and Linux. The project was formerly co-run by UNESCO....
  
  
• GNOME Accessibility Project homepage