Re: Programming without seeing
Re: Programming without seeing
- Subject: Re: Programming without seeing
- From: Georg Tuparev <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:21:31 +0100
Saqib,
Welcome on board!
My answer will be a bit disappointing. A NIB file (the results of
Interface Builder) is much more then just UI layout. It is an archive
of UI related objects that keeps them persistent. I mean, IB is not a
drawing tool. When one drags a NSTextField into a NSWindow, an real
object of type NSTextField is created, and later when the NIB file is
saved, it is made persistent. What I am trying to tell you with so many
words, is that what you are asking for is not doable out of the box.
But, there might be ways around:
- first, it is possible to create any UI without NIB at al - just from
source code. Actually, this is not so difficult as this might sound. We
have a reusable wizard framework that uses partially this method, and
implementing was not a big deal.
- Second, we (I and my coauthor) are working on ways to make this more
comfortable for people with visual impairments. There will be a special
chapter in our book on this subject. But unfortunately, we do not have
a ready solution yet.
Our company's tech writer is a blind person herself, and we are
definitely interested on this subject. While back when Apple was called
NeXT, I had a research project for writing a software for visually
impaired folks, and it was a real success. We are planning to move it
to Apple, and I will be very glad if you join the party. We never
thought of the subject of how to make IB usable by visually impaired
developers, but this is a good challenge! I am sure something could be
done.
Feel free to contact me offline (either email, or on the phone - check
my sig below) if you have more questions.
cheers
gt
On Jan 21, 2004, at 9:20 AM, Saqib Shaikh wrote:
I hope this post isn't considered off-topic since it doesn't relate to
the
accessibility APIs. I am a blind developer and want to get started
with
coding under Mac OS X (I'm a proficient programmer under Win32 and
Linux).
The main stumbling block is that in Win32-land everybody uses App
Wizard to
create dialogue boxes, menus, etc. However all that App Wizard does is
create an ASCII resource script. Five years ago I taught myself how to
write resource scripts by hand in a text editor, and have been doing
so ever
since. Similarly in Linux when using the GTK or QT toolkits, or in
Java,
many peple opt for a GUI design application, but in all cases the
output of
the application is either a script/XML file/source code.
I have read in many places that it is possible to develop using
Cocoa/Carbon
without using Interface Builder, but after a week of Googling have not
found
a single example I can learn from. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Georg Tuparev
Tuparev Technologies
Klipper 13
1186 VR Amstelveen
The Netherlands
Mobile: +31-6-55798196
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