Robert KingettI know #Signal is very popular, but at least for me, using NVDA, the desktop client is far less screen reader friendly than the mobile clients. The mobile clients work far better for me, but I honestly don't use my phone for much these days outside of being a media player that can make phone calls, so, as of right now, I'd recommend Delta Chat instead https://delta.chat/en/ #DeltaChat
🏳️⚧️PepperTheVixen🦯@WeirdWriter The desktop client is a bit of a faff with NVDA, but it's navigable with some practice. If you want, I can give you a hand with it. I use it every day on Win11 with NVDA
@PepperTheVixen That would be fantastic! I am an advanced screen reader user so I probably need to just take some time with it, but is navigating by object Nav a tad overkill? Or is there anything I must absolutely know? I only tried it for about 20 minutes or so and was hungry and not impressed, so I am sure some general hints and or knowings will get me going when I try it again.
@WeirdWriter Quick guide for using Signal on windows with NVDA: So the two big things are the table of chats and the list items which contain chat messages within each chat. There are two text fields. The first one near the top is a search field. This one is finnicky. Sometimes I can get it to play nice, but most of the time it frustrates me. The second one is a multiline field for sending messages to the selected chat. I have no idea what they're doing with whatever framework they built this app in, but you have to manually toggle focus mode to type. Once you do, it works as expected, though sometimes NVDA just can't read the contents of the field. I'll chalk this up to either the framework or NVDA because I experience something similar in discord. A quick reboot of NVDA and/or Signal will fix it. The whole app is divided into landmarks... except for the multiline field which is inside of a section. You can open the context menu on each message for various options. Some options are available only in the buttons immediately proceeding the chat message itself, still within that list item. I recommend you make a habit of tabbing away from the Signal window when you're not actively using it. NVDA has a habit of incessantly reading out timestamps ad nauseam at random intervals for no discernable reason. The app is unintuitive for screen reader users, but it's decent once you get a hang of the interface structure. Just stay in browse mode for most of it
@PepperTheVixen Thank you so much! I bookmarked this!
bdorer@WeirdWriter @PepperTheVixen In general, it would be really nice if @signalapp could have better accessibility support.
@bdorer @WeirdWriter @signalapp I agree. It's overall pretty good, but some parts could use improvement. I'd like the multiline edit field to play nicer with NVDA, the search field to be less frustrating, and I really wish they could make NVDA stop reading out timestamps every few minutes. That said, the interface is very navigable. Mayhaps I should write a guide for it once I wrap up the Discord guide...
@WeirdWriter Right here! It's a work in progress. It's intended for someone who knows NVDA well but maybe struggles with wrapping their head around the rather complex structure of the discord app. This link will take you to the branch with the most up-to-date content https://github.com/PepperTheVixen/Discord-With-NVDA/tree/rework