Web development on Mac OS

By Hasan Refaeiah, 9 March, 2021

Forum
App Development and Programming

Hello everyone.
I am wondering if anyone went through an experience developing web/Python apps on Mac OS using VisualStudio Code and how accessible is it. Also if there are any IDEs you recommend to do such things on Mac OS.

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By neosonic2 on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 - 16:22

I've used (and continue to use) Visual Studio Code on macOS Catalina and macOS Big Sur while developing Web apps based on the Laravel 7 framework. I am an experienced PHP developer as well as an experienced VoiceOver and macOS user (10+ years) and so I know my way around macOS and its screen reader fairly well. That being said, I give very high marks to Visual Studio Code and how accessible the application is. There are lots of keyboard shortcuts, VoiceOver announces relevant user interface notifications, the text editor is accessible, and all of the extensions I use are accessible as well.

My only recommendation would be to create a VoiceOver activity that runs while Visual Studio Code is running and that disables QuickNav, as having QuickNav turned on can conflict with several features of Visual Studio Code, such as the text editor.

Visual Studio Code is now also fully optimized for Apple Silicon hardware, so M1 Mac users can benefit from the additional performance and increased battery life brought about by Apple's latest generation of CPUs.

Please keep in mind, however, that Visual Studio Code is an Electron application, not a native Mac app, so it almost feels more like a Web page (contained in an application frame) than a truly native app. That being said, this isn't as noticeable after a while and the app does a great job of integrating with core operating system features so that it "feels" more like a native application.