The following technical overview is provided for interest only and is not required for using SpeakOn.
SpeakOn is written in Java and is to a large extent multi-platform. It is currently offered only in Windows.
The SpeakOn framework is built on top of Apache Felix an OSGi (Open Source Gateway initiative) framework implementation.
OSGi is a framework which facilitates a modular approach to system functionalities.
Apache Felix is an open source implementation used by SpeakOn. In Osgi, each unit of software is called a bundle and the framework provides facilities for managing these bundles locally and remotely. A bundle can import and export packages and services and these are managed automatically by the framework.
SpeakOn is using the facilities of OSGi transparently ie. the user interacts with SpeakOn and not with OSGi during normal operation.
Each application in SpeakOn is packaged in one or more OSGi bundles. There are other bundles which form part of SpeakOn which are not applications and these provide various management and housekeeping services.
SpeakOn architecture is based on three elements: applications, tasks and controls organized in lists.
An application contains one or more tasks, a task contains one or more controls. Each task has two menus associated with it a Main menu and a Help menu. The user is not exposed to applications, interacting only with tasks, controls and menus.
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