[macvoiceover] Re: Programming with VO
- From: Bryan Smart <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:32:39 -0500
Travis, this isn't correct. My RenaissanceX library will automatically generate
user interfaces at run-time that conform to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines.
If you wish, it will also properly format (arrange/size/space) controls, based
on their logical relationships. You can override that automatic formatting
behavior for a single control, a group of controls, or as much of the UI as
you'd like.
Instead of designing your interface in Interface Builder, you write a textual
description of the interface in a markup file. If you can write HTML, you can
write an interface description. The description not only includes the names of
controls, labels, and other attributes, but also includes information about how
the controls are logically and spatially related, so that the automatic
formatting engine can make appropriate decisions.
Other than the markup file, and including the RenaissanceX framework inside
your application bundle, you create applications just like people using
Interface Builder. You work with the same Cocoa objects. There aren't any
restrictions.
RenaissanceX is based off of Renaissance for GNUstep, modified and extended to
make it work better on the Mac. I'm still working on it, but the current
version is quite usable.
http://blog.bryansmart.com/2010/10/25/renaissancex-2010-02-28/
Since xCode is quite accessible, and RenaissanceX removes the need for
Interface Builder, you can program anything that you want in ObjectC.
You might also wish to join the MV-Dev group on Google to talk with other blind
people that are writing software on Macs.
http://groups.google.com/group/mv-dev
Send a message to mv-dev+subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to only subscribe to the
list.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: macvoiceover-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:macvoiceover-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Travis Siegel
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 1:25 PM
To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [macvoiceover] Re: Programming with VO
When programming on osx, you'll need to find a combination of tools that work
for you. If you have some vision, then the Xtools will work just fine for you.
If however you're like me, and are not able to see the screen, then anything
other than modifying existing code (or generating interfaces from code) isn't
possible. Apple's interface builder, (the program it uses to generate the
graphical portions of
programs written in objective C) isn't accessible to voiceover users.
You can build programs to be sure, but you can't use Ibuilder to make those
nice aqua interfaces everyone loves so much on the mac. (at least not without
sighted assistance) You can build programs from scratch that have graphical
interfaces, but it requires one heck of a lot of patience, intimate knowledge
of objective C internals, and a whole lot of sample code, because apple has a
habbit of modifying how things are done from release to release, so something
that works in
10.5 may not work in 10.6, and if you aren't using interface builder to
generate your interfaces, you're going to have a lot of trouble making things
work when a new release comes out.
For that reason, I don't even try to generate graphical interfaces using
ibuilder, or apple-provided sample code.
Instead, if I need graphical elements, I'll either use apple script, (if only a
few things are needed) java (since java takes care of layouts for me, and I
don't have to worry about whether they're ligned up or not) or I'll just create
a terminal application, which has no graphics, but can be wrapped in an apple
script or something to make it launch from finder normally. There's all sorts
of things that can be done to make stuff behave, but using interface builder
(for us) isn't one of them.
Xcode itself is fine, you can still edit compile and create code using the
Xcode tools as long as you're not trying to use interface builder to build an
interface from scratch. You can modify existing interfaces (to add
accessibility labels, change types, and the like) but again, developing from
scratch is impossible.
All is not lost though, as mentioned above, there are other options, and of
course, nothing says you need to use Xtools at all, you can use your favorite
development environment (such as emacs) if you're already an entrenched
developer, most of your existing tools can be ported to osx with little or no
changes, and you can continue doing what you do best, making programs for
others to enjoy. It's just the graphical components that will cause a bit of
headache.
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