RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired Coders?

  • From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:26:34 -0400

I bet they don't do it in the latest xib they used to in leopard but Mac
made it twice the mess in the new xcode.

 

ken

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of E.J. Zufelt
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 3:09 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired Coders?

 

There are some sighted developers who create UIs in XCode by code, and not
with Interface Builder, since xib files are terrible for version control.  I
don't have a lot of detail since I've never had to use XCode for a project
(thank God).

 

Everett Zufelt

http://zufelt.ca

 

Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/ezufelt

View my LinkedIn Profile
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt

 

 

 

On 2010-10-13, at 3:03 PM, DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26 wrote:







-----Original Message-----
From: Theresa Ford [mailto:theresa.ford@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 13:56
To: DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26
Subject: Re: FW: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?

The XIB file is just XML, and could be created via text editor /
utility script / simple app.  However, it's not intuitive XML and it
looks like 69 new lines per basic object (not connected to anything).
My initial thought is that one could build a "library of objects" text
files, with some simple substitution and use a simple bash script to
slam together these text clips to create the xml xib file.  From
there, the sighted person could open the xib in the interface builder
and rearrange the view to look right.

It would be something of a hack, but wouldn't be terribly difficult to
do the 5 base objects (viewcontroller, label, label linked to
variable, textfield linked to variable, button with ibaction).

With those clips, the script could prompt to add as many as needed
based on the type:
what would you like your label to say? what's the nsviewcontroller
class name?  what's your variable name? What's your ibaction name?

what would you like your label to say? what's the nsviewcontroller
class name?  what's your variable name? What's your ibaction name?

Push that through some sed command, string the results, and you'd have the
xib.

Of course, this very hacky solution is not very scalable, and doesn't
handle serious cases where you need objects that aren't in the clip
library or you need them to do things that are very cool or apple
changes their xib syntax or you realize you forgot to add an object.
Learning the syntax for manually editing the xib xml just looks
beastly.

The correct solution would be to toss the problem at the apple dev
team and see if they can reuse their auto-layout code from when you
build core data classes to create an accessible form-creation tool,
with the understanding that it's just going to stack things vertically
for a sighted person to go back later and beautify.

Feel free to pass this along to Chris.

- T

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 12:59 PM, DaShiell, Jude T.  CIV NAVAIR 1490,
1, 26 <jude.dashiell@xxxxxxxx> wrote:



Theresa,

 

Can you answer the Mac programming questions in this message?

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris

Hofstader

Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:51

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired

Coders?

 

I think that a company that hired a blind programmer who later struggled

to make a GUI that complies with the corporate look and feel, even with

a sighted assistant, would have no legal way to fire the blind person

over this issue. The company knew the employee was blind when they made

the job offer and should probably not assume that the blink is the right

guy for working on UI stuff.

 

A couple of years ago when I was doing a lot of C# programming in

VisualStudio, I would drag UI elements onto the form using JAWS and the

incredibly excellent scripts currently maintained by Jamal and add the

code to make the controls do what I had intended. Later, I would get my

wife, not a programmer by any stretch to rearrange the items on the form

to look good to people who can see. Yes, I probably could have kept

track of x, y, width, height of the controls and programmatically placed

them on the form but that would take hours that would be better used

working on the guts of my program while my wife could clean up the UI in

a matter of minutes.

 

Now, I'm trying to do some of this stuff with xcode on Macintosh and

without the killer JAWS scripts, the layout component is a mystery to

me. I don't know if xcode exposes an automation model (sometimes called

a DOM) or if VoiceOver can be told to get information from xcode the way

that Jamal's JAWS scripts can do. I'm told that AppleScript can serve as

a bridge between VoiceOver and xcode (among many other applications) but

I've seen no evidence of this actually working for anyone. AppleScript

is really slow - a drawback  one can experience by asking VO to tell you

the time which causes incredible latency given the complete simplicity

of the task.

 

Any ideas on xcode UI layout that I can do sloppily and have cleaned up

by a sightie later would be greatly appreciated.

 

HH,

cdh

On Oct 13, 2010, at 12:00 PM, Client Services wrote:

 

Yes... Well I was thinking that more blind peple should start

businesses.  I

have found I go farther when not limited by somebody else's

perceptions.

 

H.R. Soltani

 

-----Original Message-----

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DaShiell,

Jude

T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26

Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:55 AM

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired

Coders?

Importance: Low

 

That or give the project to the assistant to do and go on with other

things.  Even if an assistant is hired, if they don't know the

programming graphical user interface standards of your employer, you

could be out of work real fast and for good cause.

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Client

Services

Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:47

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired

Coders?

 

Hi-

 

I am very fascinated by this conversation.  In my opinion, GUIs can be

handled by blind people with a human assistant giving feedback on look

and layout.  So, don't turn away the project, hire an assistant.

 

I have found that it is hard for me to conceptualize a look and

layout.

But if somebody tells me exactly how they want something designed, it

is

rather straight forward.

 

 

 

H.R. Soltani

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kerneels

Roos

Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:08 AM

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired Coders?

 

 

 

This message was posted to a reply on the long thread about Oracle

accessibility concerns involving Java. I thought I'd post it again

with

a new subject, since it deviates from the original topic.

 

 

I can't agree more your this statement Jay. As much as all of us want

to create nice GUIs, it is really such such a battel for someone that

can't see properly, if you are honest with yourself. I would say that

the FB examples are indicative of this, since the FB concept is very

simple yet for a visually impaired person to build a GUI  is a massive

task in all fairness.

 

I didn't  catch the whole story with the recent critisism of the FB

examples, but I can understand why a professor for example would

ridicule having the logic and presentation code (GUI code) all in one

file. (or any other aspect of the FB stuff that servce the purpose of

aiding blind people) It's a poor design choice for anything but an

example, but then, that's exactly what the FB examples are -- tools to

show you simple GUI creation in various programming languages.

Personally I think it's great and I commend all the contributors. It's

a

service to the community, but sighted people will struggle to see it's

worth.

 

We must understand, for a fully sighted person, building GUIs is

rediculously easy and straight forward. No matter what kind of

accessible GUI designer tools there might be in future, the playing

field will never be level when it comes to anything graphic. Yet there

is no reason for despair, since there are numerous other areas in

computer sciense and programming in particular where a blind person

could compete well and I'm speculating that there might even be areas

where having no or little sight might aid you!

 

One particular small project I worked on while studying at university

springs to mind. It was a little applet developed with AWT or Swing

that

saved your bookmarks in a tree structure. The professor was a gracious

man, and he gave us a nice score for the project, but he stepped in

after we did our presentation and basically told the  class that we

really did spend much time on this and that we didn't just download it

from the net or something... He did this, I think, because our project

was fairly inferiour graphic wise compaired to the elaborate graphics

the other student's projects sported even though I spent hours and

hours

on the little GUI side of the software.

 

It's heart breaking for me when I read how hard blind folks try and

make

appealing graphical interfaces, or when I read about the struggles

some

software causes blind guys. It's commendable to see how people cope

with

the worst of situations, but there are also better areas to focus on,,

areas where you'll be far more productive and make a better impact .

 

It's a complex topic for me and there are much to say about it. What

I'm

wondering is if it is not a good time to review the way disabled

people

are trained up to believe that interaction with computers should

commence in the generally accepted form of having a "normal" or

sighted

OS with all highly graphical applications with a rediculously advanced

and complex and expensive screen reader stuck on top of it all.

 

And then, on the other hand, how we can identify better software

development areas to focus on where blindness poses less of an

obsticle.

Also, how we can advance in those areas and properly promote ourselves

and our value to a software development shop developing for the

general

public or business where accessibility is of little concern. Myself

for

one have a little bit of a complex when think of all my years

experience

as a software developer and yet the difficulty with which I'm faced

with

when having to develop a GUI, and how someone with far less experience

than myself could code a GUI so much faster and better looking in less

time and with less effort.

 

My challenge to the list; let's draw up a specification of areas in

programming and computer science where visually impaired people can

excell at in the modern age where graphics does play such a ever

increasingly important part.

 

Armed with such a specification we'll be in the right position to

start

and focus efforts on training ourselves up in those areas and then

sharing knowledge and awareness so that a wel trained blind programmer

(in the identified fields) could approach any development house with

confidence of his / her abilities and value she / he will add to a

company.

 

Kerneels

 

On 10/13/2010 12:31 AM, Jay Macarty wrote:

 

 

 

I would advise spending time on web development with java on the

server

side. Either that or headless java development such as web services.

Both directions can allow a person to grow into a very strong java

developer with very marketable skill sets without fighting the

constant

battle of either swing accessibility or trying to gain skills in an

API,

swt, which may have somewhat limited acceptence in a large traditional

java shop. Personally, I love swt; however, as a tech lead, I can't

push

it into a project here because it is not an accepted technology by our

enterprise architects.

 

----- Original Message ----- From: "Homme, James"

<james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx> <mailto:james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:02 AM

Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

 

Hi Jay,

Would you advise someone new to Java to spend more time on Swing, SWT,

or web?

 

Thanks.

 

Jim

 

Jim Homme,

Usability Services,

Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme

Internal recipients,  Read my accessibility blog. Discuss

accessibility

here. Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news and accessibility advice

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jay

Macarty

Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 3:31 PM

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

Over the past couple of years, I have been involved in hiring java

developers several times. One of the things we have had trouble with

is

finding people with swing experience. It seems that, while there are

certainly a number of applications still using swing heavily, a lot of

java

development is moving away from swing based GUI interfaces to using

web

based front-ends. Perhaps, Oracle thinks that a declining interest in

using

swing as a UI means they don't need to spend as much effort on swing

accessibility but that thought path can certainly leave those of us

who

still need access to heavily swing based apps in a spot.

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Stanzel, Susan - Kansas City, MO" <susan.stanzel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

<mailto:susan.stanzel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 8:11 PM

Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

 

Hi Listers,

 

I have not stepped into this until now. I would hope that needing

government

contracts in the United States would have some affect on all this. I

have

asked people about swing and I am told it isn't used very much because

there

is newer technology out there. I am not an experienced Java programmer

so

maybe the rest of you will know more than I do. I know we use Struts

at

my

building for creation of web projects. If I have just made a fool of

myself,

it's not the first time and won't be the last. (grin).

 

Susie Stanzel

 

-----Original Message-----

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of The Elf

Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 7:08 PM

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

hey, this is my usual line, "beat them into submission" lol

 

or hound,or pummel,  or...

 

elf

Moderator, Blind Access Help

Owner: Alacorn Computer Enterprises

Specialists in customized computers and peripherals

- own the might and majesty of a Alacorn!

www.alacorncomputer.com

proprietor, The Grab Bag,

for blind computer users and programmers

http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:sbahram@xxxxxxxxx>

To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 10:14 AM

Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, it only took like 15 emails on the subject, but finally the voice

of

reason has made itself known.

 

Ken, I completely agree. Now is the time to pressure them into

actually

not abandoning it.

 

Take care,

Sina

 

________________________________

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry

Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 1:10 AM

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

 

 

If this is true then it's not time to tell people to stay away.  It's

time

to get people to get active and start emailing and

calling them till they do support it.  If we stay away we lose what

accessibility was there.

 

 

 

Ken

 

 

 

 

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Storm

Dragon

 

Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 11:09 PM

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO

 

 

 

Hi,

I would not doubt it for one second. They dropped the ball on Linux

accessibility pretty much first thing when they took over Sun.

It's probably a good idea, if you have influence over software

decisions,

to encourage companies, clients, and friends to stay far

far away from Oracle and their software. I was even going to get rid

of

Open Office but fortunately the version used in Ubuntu is a

fork so not subject to them. unless, that is, they somehow manage to

win

 

their evil attack on Google. If that happens, who knows who

they will attack next. Keep your fingers crossed, and maybe the open

source community will keep the Bridge going, Orca is still

alive and well after all.

Storm

 

--

 

 

Registered Linux user number 508465:

http://counter.li.org/

My blog, Thoughts of a Dragon:

http://www.stormdragon.us/

Get yourself a Frostbox:

http://www.frostbitesystems.com/

 

 

On Sat, 2010-10-09 at 08:15 +0530, prateek aggarwal wrote:

 

 

oh know,

i wish its just a rumor.

if its ever going to be true, i'll be so said.

 

regards,

prateek agarwal.

 

 

 

On 10/9/10, Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>

<mailto:empower@xxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

 

 

 

I heard from a good source today that Oracle has decided to

discontinue

support for the Java Access Bridge (and no alternative is planned).  I

 

would be glad to be convinced otherwise.  If anyone has information

regarding this topic, please share.

 

Jamal

 

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--

Kerneels Roos

Cell: +27 (0)82 309 1998

Skype: cornelis.roos

 

"Common Sense" is not "Common Practice" .

 

"The Strawberry Jam Law:

 The wider you spread it, the thinner it gets..."

  -- from the Java Specialist Newsletter, from a book on consulting.

 

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