Developer Studio 2006: finally targetting the impaired developers again

Borland, especially Steve Trefethen, has put a focus on getting the VCL (read ActionBand Components) ready to be used by visually impared people. Since Borland Delphi 6, the Delphi IDE has used those components itself, virtually making it impossible to use by people who have to rely on screen readers, such as JAWS. Microsoft has put a lot of effort into Windows, helping those people. Learn more about it at the Microsoft Accessibility web site.

Well, with the Developer Studio 2006, Borland has enhanced the VCL components to work with (for) such screen readers. And thus, the Developer Studio itself can be used again by visually impaired (read: blind) people. The first edition in 6 years!

Recently I got to know Marco, who is in this situation. He is happy being able to work with the new Delphi. Not everything works just now - image using Together without seeing, but the base parts are back working. He can design forms, use the editor, use the IDE menu again, read error messages, etc. Be sure to check with his blog he just started. He is in the midst of getting JAWS scripts ready to work with the IDE, hopefully he will share tose, or even sell them.