Really disappointed--Rebol inaccessible to blind developers
I'm blind & use a screenreader. I can't even get past the installation screen of the Windows Rebol interpreter. This is *really* disappointing. Disappointing as well is that I'm sure the GUI's produced will be equally inaccessible to anyone who's also blind & trying to use any program I'd write using it.
Having said all that, thanks to the forum owner for a *very* accessible captcha. My search for a programming language that won't take me a century to develop in begins again. I feel like I spend 80% of my life looking for accessible tools, & < 20% actually being productive. It's discouraging.
posted by: AbleTec 26-May-2014/15:36:36-7:00
I'd be willing to take a look at making the GUI's more accessible. At very least, I could put together a little scraper app which pulls all the text into another screen, which could then be read by your reader. What screen reader application are you using?
posted by: Nick 26-May-2014/17:14:26-7:00
Try Rebol3, it doesn't have an installation screen. And it's completely open source so you can make the GUI more accessible.
posted by: Graham 26-May-2014/18:13:19-7:00
Nick, I'm using Jaws for Windows. Is the GUI for that installer perchance built using qt4? I didn't try to analyze it w/any kind of debugger or anything--I've just seen this sort of thing b4 w/qt4 interfaces. I think qt5 has better accessibility, though I can't vouch for that of a certainty. Jaws has some OCR capabilities, & it tried valiantly, but I just couldn't get past the screen. There didn't seem to be a button w/a label that Jaws could recognize to click on, & the enter key did nothing.
Graham, I'll try to find Rebol 3.
Thanks, Gentlemen.
posted by: AbleTec 26-May-2014/18:50:07-7:00
The installer GUI is built with Rebol, which uses its own graphic compositor, as opposed to the Windows API, like other GUI development tools which don't use the Windows API, but instead build widgets from lower level graphic routines.
One solution for you is to run Rebol without installation (command line option -i) without the viewtop (command line option -v). On the command line, run:
rebol.exe -iv
posted by: Nick 27-May-2014/6:18:06-7:00
Thanks for the cli options, Nick. I tried typing help at the command line, but the installer came up instead. AARRGG!
What u say is precisely what I feared. I'm a malware removal specialist. Some of my clients are blind. There's a tremendous lack of accessible malware removal programs out there. If that's the sort of GUI Rebol's going to create, then I'm in big trouble.
I tell yall what--if Rebol could help programmers write software that's both cross-platform & accessible, you'd rule the world. Accessibility is perhaps a niche market, but w/the laws in place requiring governments, universities, & business websites to be accessible,not only in the US but other countries as well, it's a growing niche, & there aren't a lot of players.
I did find Rebol 3. It's cool. It had no installer, & it was just what this former doctor ordered. I might try writing a test GUI later today & see what it does.
posted by: AbleTec 27-May-2014/12:19:23-7:00
Good to know you can now at least test Rebol 3. Hope you like it. Perhaps someday you can give some advice to improve on accessability and make it the number 1 choice for people with visibility restrictions.
posted by: Arnold 28-May-2014/1:25:49-7:00
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