We are living in an era where we are moving towards cloud computing. We are constantly finding new wayes to stay connected with our development environment and code repositories. Naturally coding with smartphone comes to mind. To facilitate this, many browser based code editors are being developed. We have browser based code editors like Visual studio code for web and dartpad These works for everybody. Right?
problems
These tools are great for those people as well who does not have access to a laptop or a PC. These tools does not work for visually impaired people like me who wants to code using their mobile. These code editors have several issues.
Inaccessible interface
There are several code editors and integrated development environments on web. They all have nice looking interface. But those websites generally does not have great support for screen readers. They have several buttons with appropriate icons but without any text. Gitpod is good example of this issue.
Issues while navigating code
We have several code editors with accessible user interface like Visual studio code for web
But in these code editors, With each keystroke, interface is being constantly updated. I understand that this provides features like auto complete and intonation. But These disturb screen reader user greatly. as soon as I press "enter", it becomes impossible to read previously written code somehow. It becomes impossible to navigate code line by line through features provided by screen readers(Talkback) on mobile.
FreeCodeCamp is great site for learning how to code. But I was unable to complete any courses because of enaccessible coding environment.
Android apps?
I was unable to find good Android apps for editing and writing code. Few apps are available but they all suffer from above mention issues.
Solution?
I wrote this article to seek help and suggestions. I need simple user interface with a normal input field where I can write and edit code. Github and Dev.to have great edit boxes. that's why I was able to publishe the post.
Additionally buttons can be provided by clicking on them I can auto format my code if needed. Sum of above mentioned code editors are open source project. People can contribute and make them accessible for all. Additionally all softwares should be tested by each user group. For example it doesn't hert to have a visually impaired person in the team who is able to test and give feedback about the use of software in mobile phone.
Thanks to Dev.to for enabling me to publish the post through their accessible interface.
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