

Legally blind programming help - befacey

Hey! So I&#x27;ve been learning how to code and being legally blind is probably one of the hardest things I have to deal with. Vision is 20&#x2F;200 and I also have a disease that causes extreme light sensitivity. I usually have dimmed displays and zoomed in as well.<p>Can anyone give me some suggestions on how I can find a way to not zoom in all the time. A lot of platforms don&#x27;t support increasing text sizes therefore I end up two inches from the screen - straining my vision as usual. Can someone help me out? Don&#x27;t want this to get in the way of my abilities any longer. Thanks again!
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lukeck
I'm visually impaired, not legally blind although not far off it. I'm also
pretty photo-sensitive. Some things that have helped me in no particular
order:

\- Get a large (27" in my case) monitor so I can have the text large without
having to constantly zoom in. High resolution + higher DPI is easier on the
eyes than getting big text by lowering the resolution.

\- Learn a terminal based text editor (Vim or EMacs) and get good at using the
terminal. Many GUI based applications, particularly IDEs have limited options
or don't work well with larger text sizes. Working within a terminal makes
developing less "visual" while maximising the amount of information on screen.
Now I spend 80% plus of my day in a terminal and my eyes are significantly
less tired at the end of the day.

\- Use a tiling window manager. On OSX I use Slate
([https://github.com/jigish/slate](https://github.com/jigish/slate)), or on
Nix you could use something like XMonad. The screen-snapping stuff in recent
versions of Windows is helpful too. The idea here is to rely on the mouse as
little as possible.

\- use a dark color scheme. I like Solarized-dark but there are several other
good options.

\- pick an easy to read font. I use Menlo and have the size up around 32pt.

\- use a terminal prompt that makes it very clear where the prompt is when
scrolling back through history. I use this one
[https://gist.github.com/agnoster/3712874](https://gist.github.com/agnoster/3712874)

\- get an adjustable monitor arm so you can bring the screen closer to you
without craning your neck. I've had the same one for 15+ years but am planning
on buying one of the Ergotron ones in the next few weeks

\- use f.lux to take the bright blue tint out of screen colors
[https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)

\- work in a room lit by lamps positioned so that they don't add any glare.

\- if you often find yourself working at the same screen as other people, set
up a second monitor in mirror-mode or investigate using TMux if you're both in
terminal editors so that you can have your terminal configured so it's
comfortable for you, and so can your partner.

I'm happy to provide more info on any of this.

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befacey
Thanks for all of this. I wasn't expecting someone to give me a detailed
response like this. Really appreciate it. Can you shoot me an email at
josejllorens@gmail.com so I have your contact info in case I have a question.
Keep in touch! Thanks.

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throwbl2014
Start using screen reader such as NVDA/Jaws on Windows, VoiceOver on Mac or
Vinux (a ubuntu fork with Orca screen reader). I have a little vision left but
I do dev with only TTS. It's not that hard (considering I've been doing it for
over 9 years) but GUI tools (IDEs and texteditors) are your biggest pane
points.

Visual studio is quite accessible and I use it a lot.

That said, I've been programming for nix as well though Sublime/etc are
completely inaccessible (at least on Windows).

Managing *nix servers with SSH is by far the most accessible and rewarding
experience I've had. VIM is my personal choice for editing. text-based
terminals are ridiculously powerful and accessible and they level the playing
field IMO.

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jankins
Screen readers or Braille displays are options - window-eyes is free on
windows now (with purchase of an office bundle) and VoiceOver is free on OS X.
After the learning curve you may find it faster than navigating visually if
it's painful or slow to look at the screen. If you're in California you may
want to look into the Department of Rehabilitation (or find the comparable
department in your state/country) which provides free equipment and training
for visually impaired users entering the job market or school.

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datashovel
Another tip, I have read into efforts of some of the large technology
companies. In my opinion, Google is making the greatest strides in terms of
comprehensive accessibility for visually impaired and blind users /
developers:

[http://www.google.com/accessibility/products/](http://www.google.com/accessibility/products/)

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datashovel
I've done research on this before. Though I'm not blind or visually impaired,
my research would tell me that a good place to start would be emacspeak

[http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/](http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/)

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befacey
I have a lot of research to do thanks to you guys. Honestly, can't thank you
all enough for the suggestions! You are all awesome.

