Best language for quickly creating user interfaces without drag and drop? [closed]

Answer 1

Being sighted myself and not having worked too closely on anything that has ever been audited for accessibility or heavily accessed by blind users, I don't think my answer will be terribly thorough. My first instinct however is to say that some kind of dynamic web server architecture that generates HTML like C#, PHP or ColdFusion is going to fit your description of handling most of the layout for you without requiring that you specify control positions in pixels. There certainly is the availability to specify control positions in pixels via CSS, but it's not required. And I know HTML also has well defined standards for accessibility, whereas I'm not sure what the status is on accessibility standards with other kinds of software.

Answer 2

take a look on XAML. I think it could be a good start for both modern Windows and Web UI creators.

Answer 3

Speaking as a blind programmer:

• C# + WinForms: You can either create the code by hand and use layout managers or calculate the sizes in your head, or if you're using the JAWS screen reader then there are scripts which will help you in the WinForms designer.
• C# + WPF: Here you define your UI in XML, but it is more complex to get your head around. Certainly look at this as it is a very nice solution. the other problem with WPF at the moment is that not all screen readers support this newer technology.
• Jamal Mazrui at www.EmpowermentZone.com has created something called "Layout By Code", but I have no experience with this.
• HTML+Javascript would be nice, but I doubt it'd be allowed in your course.
• WXWidgets: I don't have a lot of experience with this cross-platform, multi-language UI toolkit, but I believe it has layout managers and is thus used by several blind programmers I know.
• Finally, I used to design Win32 resource scripts by hand, calculating sizes in my head (no layout managers). This is certainly achievable if you wanted to take this route.

In summary, WPF's nice, but make sure your screen reader works with this kind of app. The next best alternative is probably WinForms. If you like Layout By Code then use it, but if this is a skill you want for employment, then keep that in mind.