Source Code Structures Markup System for Visually Impaired Programmers - Interface Improvements and Integration with Development Tools

Abstract

When carrying out programming tasks, different utilities are used that allow the developer to position himself in the code and improve its edition to obtain a functional program in response to a problem. These tools are provided by integrated development environments (IDEs), which make up complete solutions to generate software. Visually impaired programmers face the problem that most of the information provided by these environments comes from visual cues that they cannot access. In this work, a source code structural markup system (SIMAE) is extended to assist these developers in the navigation and positioning on the code, introducing tags as comments that allow them to know where each code structure begins and ends. Improvements are presented in the user interfaces and the integration of the tool in different IDEs widely used in industry.