GNU C for Windows and blind user!

[Philip Bennefall]

On 5/11/2019 4:04 AM, Pierre Gaumond wrote:
> Hello!
> In the 1990's years, I was the one in the computer center of the 
> University of Montreal who compiled and installed gcc on a Unix 
> system. I downloaded it from the MIT using the ftp program of Unix.
> I first compiled it with the default C compiler and compiled further 
> versions with the former version.
> However, I became blind around 2003 and have more problem to work on a 
> computer.
> I'm now on Windows 8.1 and the voice synthesis JAWS 16.
> I plan to move to Windows 10 with JAWS 2019 at the beginning of 
> september.
> I followed a lesson (or even more) on the OpenClassrooms site about 
> the C language to remind me some syntaxes that I didn't remember too much
> Do you think that I can download and install successfully a binary 
> version of gcc, including the preprocessor, the compiler, all 
> libraries, and the header files?
> I would need to know where it will be installed (folders?) on my 
> computer.
> Also  where or how do I put my C source codes in order that gcc will 
> retreive them?
> Where the gcc compiler will put the binary code of the compilation? 
> What about the ".o" files and the final link giving the full binary?
> I don't know if I will see my compiling errors on the screen.
> I also don't know if I will see the results of my print's on the 
> screen as well as if I will know that my program is waiting for an input.
> I know that the main folder on Windows is C:\User (or Users, with a S) 
> followed by my name:
> C:\User\Pierre\...
> One problem is that some folders have a french name since I have 
> installed a french version of Windows.
> Can you help me somehow?
> Best regards.
> Pierre
> -- 

Hi Piere,

I am totally blind and I use GCC every day for work, as well as in my 
free time. I personally use MinGW64, a fork of the original MinGW 
project. You can find it at:

https://mingw-w64.org/doku.php

There is a convenient installer which will guide you through the 
different choices you can make regarding toolchain, threading model etc. 
Depending on what toolchain you install, the compiler and libraries will 
be placed in either the Program Files directory or the Program Files 
(x86) directory. You can also have the installer create shortcuts. You 
can install more than one toolchain on the same machine.

As for reading the output, with Jaws you would use the Jaws cursor to 
navigate in the terminal window. Just open up the specific command 
prompt for the version of MinGW with which you want to build and invoke 
it as usual. You will be able to use the arrows to scroll up and down 
the output when you activate the Jaws cursor.

Good luck!

Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall