Question

I’m a blind college student who is taking an introduction to programming class that focuses on user interface design. The class is using Processing, which is completely inaccessible. I’m looking for a language that will allow me to create GUI’s without drag and drop and hopefully be smart enough to do most of the layout without forcing me to specify control positions in pixels.

I know Perl, Java, C/C++, c#, and HTML. I was considering creating HTA applications. My only requirements are that the language must run under MS Windows, and must not use SWING or GTK as the underlying toolkit.

Answer 1

Speaking as a blind programmer:

• C# + WinForms: You can either create the code by hand and use layout managers or calculate the sizes in your head, or if you’re using the JAWS screen reader then there are scripts which will help you in the WinForms designer.
• C# + WPF: Here you define your UI in XML, but it is more complex to get your head around. Certainly look at this as it is a very nice solution. the other problem with WPF at the moment is that not all screen readers support this newer technology.
• Jamal Mazrui at http://www.EmpowermentZone.com has created something called ‘Layout By Code’, but I have no experience with this.
• HTML+Javascript would be nice, but I doubt it’d be allowed in your course.
• WXWidgets: I don’t have a lot of experience with this cross-platform, multi-language UI toolkit, but I believe it has layout managers and is thus used by several blind programmers I know.
• Finally, I used to design Win32 resource scripts by hand, calculating sizes in my head (no layout managers). This is certainly achievable if you wanted to take this route.

In summary, WPF’s nice, but make sure your screen reader works with this kind of app. The next best alternative is probably WinForms. If you like Layout By Code then use it, but if this is a skill you want for employment, then keep that in mind.