I am pretty disappointed. I just finally had time to try the latest Arduino 2.0 IDE Beta. The accessibility and short cut keys was bad in Arduino IDE 1.x. It is worse and unusable in the latest builds of beta 2.0. There seems to be some attempts to glue accessibility on but I can’t even use the menus with either of the most popular screen readers.
Further more the forums have no posts about shortcuts worth commenting on and nothing I can find on accessibility all though it looks like someone started adding accessibility.
I am more than willing to help but so far it is unclear even where to get started with this web IDE> Web IDE’s are awful to start with for blind users without adding a lot of shortcuts to jump from one dialog to the other. Normally the menus work though and in this case that is not true.
Anyway if anyone has input to what is planned here and why there is not more already working I would love to hear it.
I will point out being accessible is how this stuff gets used in schools. I had started working with some Teachers of the Visually impaired on these environments because they are talking about using it in their school system. If the IDE is not accessible though the school systems will be forced to go to other things by the laws in place.
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There are several things that I found problematic on the IDE 1.n
1. Dialog output Link MAP "Yes", "No".Add a feature to create a
linker MAP of entry points, length, address etc.
2. Dialog to control ".bin" and ".hex" files (produce ".bin" or ".hex" or both, with bootloader or no-bootloader or both). To produce a ".bin" or "hex" file to OTA. Sketch->Export compiled Binary did NOT create the "***.ino.with_bootloader.arduino_zero" all the time a more sturdy process to generate ".bin" is needed
3. Issues in that the compile sketches do not correctly use all
the program memory available. If you can add a way of changing
these type of parameters it would be great.
4. Simple drop down to make several compile options such as
define "#define name.."
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First I am a Senior Software Engineer on projects like the BrailleBlaster (Brailleblaster.org) and much more. So I am not without the ability to help.
First the system to make reports is unclear and might be accessible but it is not very usable for those of us with Screen readers. I tried to search for any issues about accessibility and so far have been able to find nothing. I even tried to find issues on shortcut keys and the only thing I was able to find was something to do with deleting and moving lines of code. One thing that might be nice is if there was some more clear ways of getting involved in the project. I would not mind being part of fixing the problem.
Second you asked what I have seen as the problems.
That is just a short list. I am sure there are more once I am able to move around a bit in the IDE> Do you guys have anyone with accessibility knowledge working on this project? I can tell you if you try to plug accessibility in last it is only going to make things worse. If you make views and stuff that have no accessibility built in to start then it is going to make it harder to make those links later. Heck something like alt0 -alt 9 would help if each one focused different windows. It might not be the best way to go about things but it would be a short cut start. My question is though why the heck are the menus so screwed up. They should work if nothing else does.
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I had to reply one more time after I read your email again. You said this:
“that’s a very important topic indeed and I’m glad you raised it. The IDE 2.0 is a huge project, and lots or work still needs to be done. On your question about why there’s not more already working in terms of accessibility, it’s just because the team has been busy implementing other core features like serial plotter”
My answer is this. If you were working on this as you are and lets say the screen was blurry, upside down and sideways. Would there be more important features? If the IDE is not accessible there is no important features. The interface should work for those it is intended for first before the “”more important features” work. What if it turns out that the accessibility can’t be built in later. What will have been important then when the schools will not use it because of government mandates for into be made accessible. I understand this is not just for schools but it is a major portion of people using these kind of tools.
Anyway I just checked on github for current tickets and it looks like there are a few that go back quite a ways. Here they are:
360 OPEN Accessibility: Screen reader semantics and keyboard navigation could use some TLC topic: code, type: imperfection, topic: accessibility 2021-09-22 16:07:48 +0000 UTC
166 OPEN Use of disappearing popups (toasts) for upload/compile errors is inaccessible to screen readers topic: code, type: imperfection, topic: accessibility 2021-09-22 15:48:38 +0000 UTC
165 OPEN Keyboard navigation of toolbar is out of order topic: code, type: imperfection, topic: accessibility 2021-09-22 15:48:13 +0000 UTC
153 OPEN add accelerator/ shortcut keys for IDE main menu on Windows type: enhancement, topic: code, topic: accessibility 2021-10-29 04:53:05 +0000 UTC
That are just some I find by using the command line gh client for github. I will be seeing if there is something I can do but I am not sure electron is that accessible to start with. Microsoft is using it in their make code project and even the Microbit development environment has problems even though they are farther along than the Arduino IEDE. I can at least use the menus, pop up the tool box and switch between python, java script and blockily on that IDE so maybe electron interface can be saved.
Ken
From: Alessandro Ranellucci <a.rane...@arduino.cc>
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2021 5:55 AM
To: devel...@arduino.cc
Subject: Re: [Developers] Arduino IDE 2.0
Hi Ken,
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Ok I went in to see how to build this. I got this out of the build.md
If you€™re familiar with TypeScript, the [Theia IDE](https://theia-ide.org/), and if you want to contribute to the
project, you should be able to build the Arduino IDE locally. Please refer to the [Theia IDE prerequisites](https://github.com/theia-ide/theia/blob/master/doc/) documentation for the setup instructions.
First I am not familiar with it but when I go to the page it references there is no requirements and no real clear thing to understand what I need to do to setup the build. I have the one git repo but it says there are two others which I do not yet have. So I think the build instructions are a bit lacking in this repo.
From: Alessandro Ranellucci <a.rane...@arduino.cc>
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2021 5:55 AM
To: devel...@arduino.cc
Subject: Re: [Developers] Arduino IDE 2.0
Hi Ken,
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/arduino.cc/d/msgid/developers/40b039e5-65de-401a-810d-9e1ddc5a35e2%40Spark.
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My operating system is a hard question. It is what I need it to be. I build on Mac, Linux, and Windows. So I figure one of them should be rather easy to setup for a build like Arduino IDE> I am mainly a c++, C, Asm, Java, python programmer but back with Ginger bread Android I had to write a JavaScript screen reader for braille Android phone. I can get back up to speed on JS pretty quickly but it looks like the world has changed past just node.js which I have wrote a few things for. I feel like I am a little lost when I read something like go read a document on something totally different to learn how to build. I would think there should be a simple list of steps to get things in a build ready state. Currently I do about 60% of my coding in Windows but I split the remaining time in Linux and Mac. Not to mention the work I do in Windows is split between GUI, cmd, and Ubuntu wsl2. Again I do want to do more than just wine so if someone can help with getting me going I will see what I can do.
Ken
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I think his list is not very related to what I started this on. It sounds more like general problems.
From: devel...@arduino.cc <devel...@arduino.cc> On Behalf Of Paul Stoffregen
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 4:03 PM
To: devel...@arduino.cc
Subject: Re: [Developers] Arduino IDE 2.0
How are those 4 things about advanced compiler & linker options related to accessibility?
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I am fine with and love the Arduino-cli.
Here is the problem. I work in a company which makes things for the blind. We do Services, software, and devices. We make the things the schools use. We have recently added accessibility to an Arduino kit and are creating a more accessible Arduino kit that has less blinking lights and more sounds, vibrations, motors and servors while teaching the same things. Even without those kits the Teachers in schools don’t want to learn something different when working with blind students even though they sometimes have to. With that said we try to direct them to what everyone uses. So far there is nothing that is easy for a teacher to use and make it so blind kids can work with their sighted counter parts without dropping them to the command line.
Note I am a software engineer and love to live in command lines of all kinds but in a school environment teachers want the quick and easy way to get kids started. That is why things like VSCode would be great but while I have installed the extension for Arduino and the cli. So far I have not been able to set the variables I need to without assistance to make it a workable IDE. I use visual studio with no problem but these web based apps are awful with blind access software. I hope they continue to get better but so far web based applications are not great.
WE had one of our coders add a couple things to make the old Arduino IDE library and board manager more accessible it went in in version 1.8.10. Unfortunately the Arduino IDE uses non native java GUI which is yet another thing screen readers have trouble with. It takes a special access bridge to make it work with screen readers and that takes extra setup. With that said once they get the access bridge added the old Arduino ID beyond 1.8.10 works rather well with screen readers. The problem is schools are shifting to VSCode, online make code, and amazingly they are looking at the new Arduino 2.0 beta already. All of which have serious accessibility problems. I think the thing they like most about the new 2.0 is how it helps set things up if you ad a board, library, etc.…
I guess I have rambled all that to say this. Sighted teachers want to use simple IDE’s to teach all the kids and they don’t have time to learn different methods like a command line in beginning computer classes unfortunately. We definitely get kids into Arduino-cli as soon as they don’t need guidance but sometimes that is not as fast as we might want with as quick passed schools are now days.
Anyway long way to say. Love Arduino-cli but it doesn’t fit what we need it for.
From: Alessandro Ranellucci <a.rane...@arduino.cc>
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 4:16 PM
To: devel...@arduino.cc
Subject: RE: [Developers] Arduino IDE 2.0
One more point about accessibility: in order to provide a workaround while the IDE is being worked on, we have been working hard to expose all the features of the IDE from command line: you can code with your editor of choice, and then call arduino-cli from the terminal to compile, upload, install libraries and so on.
Many users are not familiar with command line tools, of course, but that's still an option that wasn’t available before, so one step forward. Of course, any feedback about the command line interface is welcome too. :)
- Alessandro
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