An excellent point, Peter. In fact, I just read Malte's discussion on the same API, and something he said - "If [the user] really is interested in selecting a certain format, he can use the dialog in the application." - reminded me of our initial reaction when we were asked to implement IAccessibleEditableText::copyText, cutText, and pasteText in our StyledText control.... namely, "Why??".
Why do AT need a separate way of doing something that every editable text control already provides by a multitude of standard platform mechanisms? I still don't have the answer. However, since we implemented IAccessibleEditableText in order to provide insert/replace/delete and allow setting of attributes, we then implemented cut/copy/paste anyway, but only because they were in the same interface. Our second question was "What are the offsets for? Why not just use the selection?". The answer to that was that since IAccessibleText::copy needed offsets because there might not be a selection, someone decided that IAccessibleEditableText cut/copy/paste needed offsets, too, for consistency. This was an unfortunate decision, because it gives these methods a very strange side effect: the server is forced to change the selection to match the offsets before doing the clipboard operation. We grudgingly implemented these methods, and hoped that no AT would ever send us any offsets other than those for the already existing selection. :) (Epilogue: I cannot find a definition of IAccessibleText::copy anywhere, so the original reason that there are offsets for the clipboard methods has been completely lost in the mists of time). Now, since multi-selection makes the strange semantics even stranger, I am happy to revert back to our initial impression that IAccessibleEditibleText[2] doesn't need clipboard operations at all. :) Carolyn From: Peter Korn <[email protected]> To: Carolyn MacLeod/Ottawa/IBM@IBMCA Cc: Alexander Surkov <[email protected]>, [email protected], IA2 List <[email protected]> Date: 27/06/2011 02:22 PM Subject: Re: [Accessibility-ia2] next changes to IAccessible2 Carolyn, gang, Before we get too deep into (re-) designing this API... Do we have a clear set of use cases? What AT do we expect to call this/these API call(s), supporting which use cases? Regards, Peter On 6/27/2011 11:13 AM, Carolyn MacLeod wrote: Hi, all. Regarding IAccessibleEditableText2::pasteText(startOffset, endOffset, mimeType): 1) If we are going to use "mime type" to specify the clipboard format, then I think we need an explicit mapping from mime type to platform-specific clipboard format so that AT and server are both speaking the same language. For example, something like: MIME type Windows GTK/ATK text/plain CF_TEXT (predefined) gdk_atom_intern("COMPOUND_TEXT") gdk_atom_intern("UTF8_STRING") gdk_atom_intern("STRING") text/rtf CF_RTF = RegisterClipboardFormat("Rich Text Format") gdk_atom_intern("text/rtf") gdk_atom_intern("TEXT/RTF") gdk_atom_intern("application/rtf") text/html CF_HTML = RegisterClipboardFormat("HTML Format") gdk_atom_intern("text/html") gdk_atom_intern("TEXT/HTML") 2) Do we allow only text/* MIME types? Or do we allow all mime types? For example, is pasteText(10, 20, "image/jpeg") allowed? Probably should be, given that most word processors can paste an image (among other things) at a specific location, but the name pasteText is wrong for that context (unless it means "paste the into the text"...). For the curious, here is a typical list of text/* mime types, taken from Java AWT data transfer's "best text flavor" method: http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/datatransfer/DataFlavor.html#selectBestTextFlavor(java.awt.datatransfer.DataFlavor []) ?"text/sgml" ?"text/xml" ?"text/html" ?"text/rtf" ?"text/enriched" ?"text/richtext" ?"text/uri-list" ?"text/tab-separated-values" ?"text/t140" ?"text/rfc822-headers" ?"text/parityfec" ?"text/directory" ?"text/css" ?"text/calendar" ?"application/x-java-serialized-object" ?"text/plain" ?"text/<other>" 3) We need to more fully specify: "If mime type is missed then application choose more appropriate one depending on insertion context." i.e. If mime_type is empty string or NULL? Also, if mime_type is unsupported by the server, I assume we would return E_INVALIDARG and paste nothing? 4) Paste gets a bit complicated in the context of multiple selections, so the following sentence may need revision: "If both start and end offsets are equal to IA2_TEXT_OFFSET_SELECTION (value -3) then they point to start and end offset of active selection (i.e. start or end of selection has a caret)." If we truly mean that pasteText only pastes onto the selection that has the caret, then perhaps we can spec it as: pasteText(IA2_TEXT_OFFSET_CARET, IA2_TEXT_OFFSET_SELECTION, mime_type) rather than: pasteText(IA2_TEXT_OFFSET_SELECTION, IA2_TEXT_OFFSET_SELECTION, mime_type) This would make it clearer that it is the selection with the caret that will be operated on. However, it probably makes more sense to spec that the paste should happen on all selections. Consider the following semantics of clipboard operations on multiple selections in MS Word (which is not the defining app for multiple selection clipboard operations, however their semantics mostly make sense... and when I tried FF, I got odd behavior for everything except Copy). If we have this line of text: One fish two fish red fish blue fish Now select One two red blue by double-clicking while holding down Ctrl (I don't know how to do this with only the keyboard), then Copy, and the clipboard contains: One two red blue (I am not sure why line breaks are inserted between words... that is a bit odd. Multi-select copy in FF concatenates the words without line breaks). Start again with the original text, select One two red blue as before, and Cut, and we are left with: fish fish fish fish The clipboard contains the same data as for Copy. Start again with the original text, select One two red blue, and Paste "the ", and we get: the fish the fish the fish the fish Finally, start again with the original text, select One two red blue, and type "green", and we have: One fish two fish red fish green fish In other words, clipboard commands operate on all selections, but insert (typing) only operates on the selection that contains the caret. What I am getting at by all of this is that maybe pasteText should not have any offset parameters at all, because startOffset and endOffset are inadequate to define multiple selections). Perhaps pasteText should simply be specified to always operate on the selection, whatever that may be. And if that is the case, then it only makes sense to remove the parameters from copyText and cutText as well, for the same reason. Carolyn From: Alexander Surkov <[email protected]> To: Brian Cragun <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected], IA2 List <[email protected]> Date: 08/06/2011 06:45 AM Subject: Re: [Accessibility-ia2] next changes to IAccessible2 Sent by: [email protected] Hi, Brian. I added this suggestion to wiki - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/IA2_1.3#IAccessibleEditableText2_interface . Thank you. Alex. On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 10:51 PM, Brian Cragun <[email protected]> wrote: > I propose we add a way for IA2 Paste Text to provide both a Start and an End > Offset parameter. Also to provide an Attributes parameter. > Copy-with-parameters should be implemented as an additional method in > IAccessibleText. > > See previous exchanges on this topic to the list: > https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/accessibility-ia2/2010-September/001219.html > https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/accessibility-ia2/2010-October/001223.html > > Previously this was not changed because it required a new interface. Now we > are making new interfaces. Good time to add. > > Regards, > > Brian > > Brian Cragun > IBM AbilityLab Consultant > Human Ability & Accessibility Center > www.ibm.com/able & w3.ibm.com/able > W:(720)-663-2801 H:(507)288-2437 > > > > > From: Pete Brunet <[email protected]> > To: IA2 List <[email protected]> > Date: 06/06/2011 11:12 PM > Subject: Re: [Accessibility-ia2] next changes to IAccessible2 > Sent by: [email protected] > ________________________________ > > > Hi all, Please take a look at this and provide your feedback: > > https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/IA2_1.3 > > Thanks, Pete > -- > Pete Brunet > > a11ysoft - Accessibility Architecture and Development > (512) 238-6967 (work), (512) 689-4155 (cell) > Skype: pete.brunet > IM: ptbrunet (AOL, Google), [email protected] (MSN) > http://www.a11ysoft.com/about/ > Ionosphere: WS4G > > On 3/11/2011 11:10 PM, Alexander Surkov wrote: > Hi, Jamie. I missed Mick suggestion on the list. It's sounds reasonable and > I agree we should try it before getting new API for this since the issue is > mostly about events. > > Thank you. > Alex. > > > On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 11:43 AM, James Teh <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi. > > Nice work; good to get the discussion going. :) > > I still don't see a need for this registry API. Why not just use > IsWinEventHookInstalled(), as Mick suggested on the IA2 list? > > Thanks. > > Jamie > > > On 12/03/2011 3:48 AM, Alexander Surkov wrote: > Hi. > > I gathered ideas into one doc - > https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/IA2_1.3. Please give feedback > here and feel free to edit the wiki. > > Thank you. > Alex. > > -- > James Teh > Vice President, Developer > NV Access Inc, ABN 61773362390 > Email: [email protected] > Web site: http://www.nvaccess.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > Accessibility-ia2 mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility-ia2 > > > _______________________________________________ > Accessibility-ia2 mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility-ia2 > > _______________________________________________ Accessibility-ia2 mailing list [email protected] https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility-ia2 _______________________________________________ Accessibility-ia2 mailing list [email protected] https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility-ia2 -- Peter Korn | Accessibility Principal Phone: +1 650 5069522 500 Oracle Parkway | Redwood City, CA 94065 Oracle is committed to developing practices and products that help protect the environment
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