The new crop of immediate mode cross platform GUI libraries are more interesting (such as nuklear and Dear Imgui).
They're also completely inaccessible to blind people (using screen readers) and probably some people with other disabilities as well. IUP is at least partially based on platform controls. I'll take usable over interesting.
Some platforms do have APIs like that. For example, on Windows, UI Automation is not tied to any particular UI framework; the UIA tree just needs to be associated with an HWND (Win32 window handle). But implementing these APIs is a lot of work. And I imagine it would be especially challenging for an immediate-mode toolkit, because an API like UI Automation is based on a retained tree of objects that the screen reader or other assistive technology can query on demand. So I figure applications are more likely to be accessible if I warn developers away from such toolkits altogether.
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They're also completely inaccessible to blind people (using screen readers) and probably some people with other disabilities as well. IUP is at least partially based on platform controls. I'll take usable over interesting.
This wouldn't be a problem if the underlying operating system APIs wouldn't treat accessibility as an opaque "feature" baked into their UI frameworks.
There should/could be open accessibility APIs in each OS which sit between (e.g.) screenreader software and custom UI frameworks.
Some platforms do have APIs like that. For example, on Windows, UI Automation is not tied to any particular UI framework; the UIA tree just needs to be associated with an HWND (Win32 window handle). But implementing these APIs is a lot of work. And I imagine it would be especially challenging for an immediate-mode toolkit, because an API like UI Automation is based on a retained tree of objects that the screen reader or other assistive technology can query on demand. So I figure applications are more likely to be accessible if I warn developers away from such toolkits altogether.