Re: Sodbeans 0.5 Release in Early July
- From: Andreas Stefik <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:39:14 -0500
Yaa, exactly, desktop layout, especially, is amazing. I'm definitely
willing to include a GUI library in hop, although I don't want to end
up writing the entire standard library myself.
Stefik
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 7:34 AM, Sina Bahram <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Java's built in layout managers/mechanisms are actually quite powerful. From
> the simplistic border layout to the grid and bag
> layouts, there are several ways to layout some very nice looking GUIs.
>
> The other advantages include automatic resizing support for when the window
> is restored or maximized.
>
> Take care,
> Sina
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jamal Mazrui
> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 7:47 AM
> To: programmingblind
> Subject: Re: Sodbeans 0.5 Release in Early July
>
> I do think a fruit basket example would be useful, as it facilitates
> comparisons with other development approaches. More
> importantly though, I am thinking that developing GUIs is a valuable skill
> for blind programmers to learn, so I am suggesting that
> it become part of the curriculum you are preparing whenever technically
> feasible.
>
> I hardly know Java or Swing, myself, but think that the GUI building approach
> I call Layout by Code (LbC) could probably be adapted
> to Java-Swing and/or Java-SWT (which may yield more accessible GUIs on some
> platforms).
>
> LbC involves a set of convenient wrapper methods that internally use
> auto-layout mechanisms of a GUI library (which Swing and SWT
> both include). One of the most challenging areas for blind programmers has
> been the layout of GUIs in a visually acceptable manner.
> Most layout tools are highly mouse and visually oriented. Making pixel
> calculations manually is possible but tedious and error
> prone. LbC tries to simplify this for common layout patterns. Good use of
> auto-layout mechanisms also benefit cross-platform
> portability, since the GUI can adapt appropriately to conventions and
> capabilities of the client platform.
>
> Jamal
>
> On 6/15/2010 8:56 AM, Andreas Stefik wrote:
>> Jamal,
>>
>> Yes, Hop has access directly to the JVM and you can access swing
>> directly. In fact, there is actually one command in there that uses a
>> swing class as a popup input window for grabbing some input from the
>> user. There's also a currently very small standard library, where you
>> can wrap the VM access, so that users can just use normal hop calls.
>>
>> Are you thinking about this cause you think we should make a fruit basket?
>>
>> Stefik
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 7:27 AM, Jamal Mazrui<empower@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> Unfortunately and to my surprise, I do not think there is a reliable,
>>> programmatic technique available for determining when JAWS, System
>>> Access, NVDA, or Window-Eyes has stopped speaking, or put another
>>> way, determining whether speech is currently being output. I think
>>> there is a way with the SAPI API, at least SAPI4.
>>>
>>> Does the Hop language run on top of the Java virtual machine? If so,
>>> I guess it may have access to Swing classes for building a UI. That
>>> approach would be similar to Jython, JRuby, and Grails.
>>>
>>> Jamal
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/14/2010 10:59 AM, Andreas Stefik wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Jamal,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks on the SayTools material. We've been wanting to add in
>>>> windows eyes support, pulling support from say tools, but haven't
>>>> had a chance to add it yet. We also have mac support, so if you want
>>>> to add that into say tools from our implementation, feel free.
>>>> Actually, I was wondering, have you figured out any way to get the
>>>> screen readers to inform you when text is finished speaking or when
>>>> the screen reader decided to start speaking something else on its own?
>>>>
>>>> As for user interfaces, we won't have UI support before this release.
>>>> However, we just finished a way to make native calls down to Java or
>>>> C++ from Hop, and as such, creating an API for user interfaces is
>>>> definitely possible. If cooking up an API for that sort of thing
>>>> interests you at all, I certainly wouldn't complain.
>>>>
>>>> Stefik
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 8:15 AM, Jamal Mazrui<empower@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Congrats, Andreas, on the pprogress your team has made!
>>>>>
>>>>> Let me make sure you are aware that SayTools includes code for
>>>>> speaking through the APIs of Window-Eyes and System Access.
>>>>>
>>>>> One question I have is whether it is currently possible to create
>>>>> graphical user interfaces with Sodbeans. Sorry if that has been
>>>>> explained already.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jamal
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 6/13/2010 4:10 PM, Andreas Stefik wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hey folks,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I know some of the folks on the list (e.g., Sina, Jamal, Louie
>>>>>> Most), have been involved in the Sodbeans project, which my team
>>>>>> and I are designing as a prototype to show how to make programming
>>>>>> languages and development environments easier to use for blind
>>>>>> users. My team, which is both at southern Illinois university
>>>>>> edwardsville, and washington state university, has made
>>>>>> significant progress, and a working, alpha, build of our tool is
>>>>>> nearly ready for release. As I've been working to develop this
>>>>>> technology now for almost five years, I can't tell you how personally
>>>>>> excited I am to get the software finally out there.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It looks like our final feature set for this first release is
>>>>>> going to include the following:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Talking debugger, which aurally tells the user what is
>>>>>> happening as you debug. For example, our debugger might tell you
>>>>>> the values of variables as they change, whether you have called a
>>>>>> function, created an object, or done other actions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2. Talking compiler, which tells you whether there are compiler
>>>>>> errors, and summarizes aurally the problems, if any, in the source
>>>>>> code.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 3. A custom programming language called Hop. Hop is a fully
>>>>>> functioning programming language that we've designed in formal
>>>>>> experiments where we watch people program using audio only
>>>>>> environments. Besides typical features you would expect in a
>>>>>> modern language (e.g., control structures, objects), in Hop,
>>>>>> accessibility is a first class citizen. To give you an example of
>>>>>> how HOP can help blind users, if you wanted to write a computer
>>>>>> program to make your screen reader speak in C++ or Java, it's time
>>>>>> consuming and you need some expertise on how to connect to various
>>>>>> screen reader architectures. In Hop, you can connect to any
>>>>>> arbitrary screen reader the user has loaded by saying:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> say "How's it going, screen reader?"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and you will hear the TTS routed appropriately. Right now we
>>>>>> support JAWS, NVDA, SAPI, and Mac out of the box and we're working
>>>>>> on adding more readers as we go.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 4. Full integration into Oracle's NetBeans IDE. The accessibility
>>>>>> support in Sodbeans is built on the Sappy platform, which is built
>>>>>> on the NetBeans platform. We have fixed an enormous number of
>>>>>> accessibility problems and bugs since our Sappy 0.5.3 release and
>>>>>> have added NVDA support (Thanks, Sina!).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, that's what we've been working on. After we release, we would
>>>>>> love to get the community even more involved. We welcome
>>>>>> contributions to the standard library in Hop, like classes for
>>>>>> data structures, more screen reader support, or other features. We
>>>>>> would also love to get feedback on how we can improve the user
>>>>>> interface for the blind or even get just general opinions on where the
>>>>>> research should go.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for listening everyone,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andreas Stefik, Ph.D.
>>>>>> Department of Computer Science
>>>>>> Southern Illinois University Edwardsville __________ View the
>>>>>> list's information and change your settings at
>>>>>> //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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