4 ms·

Before you start picking up a library like this, keep in mind that no immediate-mode GUI library I'm aware of (including this one from what I can see in the sou

Before you start picking up a library like this, keep in mind that no immediate-mode GUI library I'm aware of (including this one from what I can see in the source code) has support for assistive technologies such as screen readers. To them the whole UI is one big black box, so your program is completely useless to anyone with a wide range of disabilities.

milansuk 5y ago
Do operation systems have APIs, so the program can send them what is on the screen? I mean just description like: There is the button with title "Push me" in the rectangle(50, 50, 100, 70), etc. Or are there any "screen reader" libraries?
- fatih-erikli 5y ago
  There's a10n standards defined by w3c, https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/ https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/.
- a-priori 5y ago
  Yes. I don’t know about Windows but I know that for OSX you need to implement the NSAccessibility protocol in AppKit. This gives you a way to describe the hierarchy of the UI and to notify the system of important changes.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Yes they do, at least Apple, Google and Microsoft ones. On GNU/Linux, I think the only thing that exists in the Gtk+ features that were originally sponsored by Sun.
- malkia 5y ago
  Even systems like Qt, where things are drawn using non-native widgets support that (I was long proponent of wxWidgets, because I thought assistive tech is only support only if you use native widgets. The idea of API where you explain what you are showing, and how to interact with it never came to my mind, but with ARIA - like any browser that's the way to go). Not only that, but I thhink assistive tech should allow you do to easier GUI testing too, but haven't digged into that idea yet (probably folks already are)
- jcelerier 5y ago
  Yes, OSes have APIs. Another commenter talked about the Mac one, Linux has AT-SPI and Windows has MSAA (historic) and UIA. If I'm not mistaken, they generally are about representing the UI as a tree of items as this is what the accessibility hardware expects / works best with.
- underwater 5y ago
  Aren't you then trying to bridge an immediate mode API (rendering controls) and a retained mode API (assistive tech).
  - mwcampbell 5y ago
    Yes. This has influenced the design of my AccessKit [1] project. With AccessKit, the application (or GUI toolkit) pushes tree updates to the platform adapter, which maintains a complete tree that it uses to implement the platform-specific accessibility API. Each application-supplied tree update can be a full tree or just the nodes that have changed. So an immediate-mode GUI can push a full tree every frame. There just has to be some way of keeping node IDs stable across frames. [1]: https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit
eliasnaur 5y ago
The immediate mode Gio (gioui.org) toolkit has support for accessibility (on Android for now), IME and, recently, RTL text layout. Disclaimer: I'm the author.
- a-priori 5y ago
  That’s great, thanks for the letting me know!
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  I can also report some modest progress on my own work on accessibility of immediate-mode GUIs. I have a branch of the Rust egui library [1] that has basic accessibility on Windows using my AccessKit project [2]. I do have a long way to go to make this fully usable and ready to submit upstream, especially when taking non-Windows platforms into account. [1]: https://github.com/mwcampbell/egui/tree/accesskit https://github.com/mwcampbell/egui/tree/accesskit [2]: https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit
- yashasolutions 5y ago
  pretty awesome lib!
nikki93 5y ago
I've been using an immediate mode api that generates html elements in web, so that you do get the things that html offers. I basically have a thin wrapper around http://google.github.io/incremental-dom/ http://google.github.io/incremental-dom/ (I'm using it from wasm) -- calling it per frame has actually been reasonable perf-wise.
CJefferson 5y ago
Thanks for making the post I was coming to make :) While it's popular to mock electron, it does make it easy to make accessible cross-platform apps, whereas most of the "minimal alternatives" are entirely inaccessible.
grishka 5y ago
Seeing that it uses char* for strings, I'd also assume it doesn't support unicode and thus non-Latin scripts.
- sunout2 5y ago
  Raygui supports unicode for input and output. https://github.com/raysan5/raygui/issues/99 https://github.com/raysan5/raygui/issues/99
schleck8 5y ago
I think egui (Rust) supports screenreaders

milansuk 5y ago

Do operation systems have APIs, so the program can send them what is on the screen? I mean just description like: There is the button with title "Push me" in the rectangle(50, 50, 100, 70), etc. Or are there any "screen reader" libraries?

fatih-erikli 5y ago
There's a10n standards defined by w3c, https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/ https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/.
a-priori 5y ago
Yes. I don’t know about Windows but I know that for OSX you need to implement the NSAccessibility protocol in AppKit. This gives you a way to describe the hierarchy of the UI and to notify the system of important changes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 5y ago
Yes they do, at least Apple, Google and Microsoft ones. On GNU/Linux, I think the only thing that exists in the Gtk+ features that were originally sponsored by Sun.
malkia 5y ago
Even systems like Qt, where things are drawn using non-native widgets support that (I was long proponent of wxWidgets, because I thought assistive tech is only support only if you use native widgets. The idea of API where you explain what you are showing, and how to interact with it never came to my mind, but with ARIA - like any browser that's the way to go). Not only that, but I thhink assistive tech should allow you do to easier GUI testing too, but haven't digged into that idea yet (probably folks already are)
jcelerier 5y ago
Yes, OSes have APIs. Another commenter talked about the Mac one, Linux has AT-SPI and Windows has MSAA (historic) and UIA. If I'm not mistaken, they generally are about representing the UI as a tree of items as this is what the accessibility hardware expects / works best with.
underwater 5y ago
Aren't you then trying to bridge an immediate mode API (rendering controls) and a retained mode API (assistive tech).
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  Yes. This has influenced the design of my AccessKit [1] project. With AccessKit, the application (or GUI toolkit) pushes tree updates to the platform adapter, which maintains a complete tree that it uses to implement the platform-specific accessibility API. Each application-supplied tree update can be a full tree or just the nodes that have changed. So an immediate-mode GUI can push a full tree every frame. There just has to be some way of keeping node IDs stable across frames. [1]: https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit

eliasnaur 5y ago

The immediate mode Gio (gioui.org) toolkit has support for accessibility (on Android for now), IME and, recently, RTL text layout. Disclaimer: I'm the author.

a-priori 5y ago
That’s great, thanks for the letting me know!
mwcampbell 5y ago
I can also report some modest progress on my own work on accessibility of immediate-mode GUIs. I have a branch of the Rust egui library [1] that has basic accessibility on Windows using my AccessKit project [2]. I do have a long way to go to make this fully usable and ready to submit upstream, especially when taking non-Windows platforms into account. [1]: https://github.com/mwcampbell/egui/tree/accesskit https://github.com/mwcampbell/egui/tree/accesskit [2]: https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit
yashasolutions 5y ago
pretty awesome lib!

nikki93 5y ago

I've been using an immediate mode api that generates html elements in web, so that you do get the things that html offers. I basically have a thin wrapper around http://google.github.io/incremental-dom/ http://google.github.io/incremental-dom/ (I'm using it from wasm) -- calling it per frame has actually been reasonable perf-wise.

CJefferson 5y ago

Thanks for making the post I was coming to make :) While it's popular to mock electron, it does make it easy to make accessible cross-platform apps, whereas most of the "minimal alternatives" are entirely inaccessible.

grishka 5y ago

Seeing that it uses char* for strings, I'd also assume it doesn't support unicode and thus non-Latin scripts.

sunout2 5y ago
Raygui supports unicode for input and output. https://github.com/raysan5/raygui/issues/99 https://github.com/raysan5/raygui/issues/99

schleck8 5y ago

I think egui (Rust) supports screenreaders