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A lot of VST/AU plugins already use Qt, JUCE or SynthMaker for the GUI and are completely inaccessible. On the other hand, there are a lot of web pages and Ele

by ratww 6y ago

A lot of VST/AU plugins already use Qt, JUCE or SynthMaker for the GUI and are completely inaccessible. On the other hand, there are a lot of web pages and Electron apps that are completely inaccessible as well, despite using accessibility-ready web tech. The problem is not really the lack of an abstraction layer, but more the fact that those developers are doing a shitload of work to make something look über cool and different from everyone else without taking a couple weeks (or maybe not even that much) to iron out accessibility issues. By the way, at least for plugins, another option is not doing any GUI at all and just exposing all parameters to the host, like the AirWindows guy does [1]. Or using native OS controls. This is both very accessible and EXTREMELY cheap. [1] http://www.airwindows.com http://www.airwindows.com

mwcampbell 6y ago
No disagreement there. Still, there are also developers who go out of their way to make their software both cool-looking and lean and mean by rolling their own GUI toolkit... and now it would take them way longer to implement accessibility.
- deleted 6y ago
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- ratww 6y ago
  I agree, but it sounds to me that the issue then is not with lean and mean code per se. Both AirWindows and people using native interfaces in plugins are leaner, meaner and more accessible than your example. And by the way, to keep on topic, "handmade" audio software people are not really creating their own GUI toolkit. That's the big boys at Waves, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, etc. The problem to me is that people are trying to make things that look exactly the same everywhere with complete disregard for both the user and the particularities of each platform. And by platform I don't just mean the OS: one of my pet peeves with audio software are plugins that skip the DAW's preset saving and implement their own. The walked an extra mile only to give me a shitty interface when I wish I could just use Logic presets or whatever.

by ratww 6y ago

mwcampbell 6y ago

No disagreement there. Still, there are also developers who go out of their way to make their software both cool-looking and lean and mean by rolling their own GUI toolkit... and now it would take them way longer to implement accessibility.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ratww 6y ago
I agree, but it sounds to me that the issue then is not with lean and mean code per se. Both AirWindows and people using native interfaces in plugins are leaner, meaner and more accessible than your example. And by the way, to keep on topic, "handmade" audio software people are not really creating their own GUI toolkit. That's the big boys at Waves, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, etc. The problem to me is that people are trying to make things that look exactly the same everywhere with complete disregard for both the user and the particularities of each platform. And by platform I don't just mean the OS: one of my pet peeves with audio software are plugins that skip the DAW's preset saving and implement their own. The walked an extra mile only to give me a shitty interface when I wish I could just use Logic presets or whatever.