[nfbcs] development of GUI's in C++

[David Tseng]

On 1/8/12, Joseph C. Lininger <jbahm at pcdesk.net> wrote:
> Howdy folks,
> Does anyone on this list know of a good way to develop graphical user
> interfaces under Windows as a blind person using the C++ programming
> language? I should point out before we go much further that use of
> visual studio or other Microsoft development environments is not an
> option.

As you probably anticipated, you will likely get the best results with
Microsoft tools when attempting to develop GUI's for that particular
platform. There are great scripts of laying out UI using Visual Studio
available for Jaws; you can, as a blind person, drag and drop controls
on a canvas (in Windows programming lingo, a form). You can then size,
style, and oversee the UI in a  medium more akin to that used by a
designer.

 I do nearly all of my development work under Linux, but I'd like
> to port some of my software to Windows. Probably will use a posix layer
> like Cygwin, or else another type of environment like mingw to get it to
> run.

If you want to develop cross platform GUI's, you can try using a cross
platform graphical toolkit like WX which has C++ bindings. You will
have to roll your own controls in code, which I assume you're
comfortable doing. You can also choose to directly use a Windows
specific framework like MFC which would give you more explicit
oversight over your app. It all comes down to your needs and the
complexity of your app.

Wrt posix, you'll have to abstract away those particular calls to
generic cross platform calls; I'm sure there's library support for
such things but requiring cygwin probably isn't a good move for users.



 You, also, have the option of developing everything in web
technologies though that's outside of your C++ requirement.
> --
> "All models are wrong, but some are useful." George E. P. Box
> Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm at pcdesk.net>
>
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