This is the post that I made to the Akkoma forums. The developer of the software is also there. But if I don't hear from her in a week, I will e-mail her privately.

"Hello, everyone. In October of 2024, Facebook shut down their Basic Mobile site, which was fully screen reader accessible. Their main site and apps are terrible to use with screen readers. I therefore switched to Friendica. After awhile, I noticed many issues, to the point that I switched again, this time to Akkoma, more specifically to the Blob.cat instance. My experience here has been truly wonderful, from the people to the site itself. However, I have noticed some very minor problems that I must mention. Note that I mostly use Firefox, Windows, and the NVDA screen reader. I am totally blind, so I cannot comment on any visual elements.

1. Many buttons are unlabelled and simply say "button". This is true on the main page, in settings, and when viewing posts and tabs in profiles. Most work once pressed. They just need to be labelled.

2. Searching for people, tags, groups, and posts is inaccessible. I can enter the edit field and write my text, but then, there are two unlabelled buttons next to that. The first simply takes me back to the edit field. The second does nothing. I am assuming this is a submit button that doesn't work via the keyboard. There is also a Preferences button on my home page that appears to do nothing. My work-around has been to create a post with hash tags that I wish to follow, and I have been able to do so from there, but I must still use a client (TWBlue) to search for people and posts.

3. There is no way to stop notifications from appearing on my main page, when viewing other timelines, followers, etc. I always see my notifications first and must go through them in order to reach the content I'm seeking. Please consider creating a collapse button or a separate page for Notifications. If there is already a way to do this in settings and I have missed it, please let me know.

4. The page renders very differently in Chrome than in Firefox. In Chrome, I can't see anything but my notifications, so I can't get to my profile or the other timelines. In firefox, I usually can. But I just had an experience in which I couldn't. This may simply have been a slow-loading page or some such, though I think it's because it was loading so many posts and notifications. This is very frustrating when I just want to get to my profile, settings, or even other timelines. Those options always need to be there. Maybe, sighted people experience this as well. It also may be that they do show in Chrome, but I didn't give them enough time to load. I think the solution from 3 would easily solve this problem

I am not a programmer or web developer, butI have been a computer user for over twenty years. I am beginning to learn about website accessibility testing, and it seems this is just a matter of using semantic html and ensuring that things are labelled and accessible with the keyboard. I don't think these steps would take long to implement, and they would make Akkoma completely accessible to the blind, giving us a great alternative to other sites which are either not or are full of other limitations. I am fully willing to test any changes made and to offer any suggestions I can."

This is the link to the thread itself.

meta.akkoma.dev/t/minor-featur…

#accessibility #Akkoma #blind #Blob.cat #NVDA #ScreenReaders #TWBlue #Windows

Please ignore this post, unless you find the tags interesting and wish to add me on account of them. The search function on blob.cat doesn't work with screen readers, and I can't view my profile without editing it, which turns the tags into regular text, not links. This is a work-around so I can follow various tags.

#19thCentury #AARP #accessibility #Akkoma #AltText #Android #animals #AntiqueMenswear #atheism #BeauBrummell #baking #BelCanto #birds books #blind #blobcat #blob.cat #BritishEmpire #BritishLiterature #cats #ChildFree #chamberMusic #champagne #choirs #ChoralSinging #ChoralMusic #ClaraNovelloDavies #ClassicalMusic #coffee #cooking #crafts #dandies #dandyism #dating #DinoBorgioli, documentaries #Dreamwidth #Edwardian #England #English #EnricoCaruso #EtonCollege #Facebook #fashion #Fediverse #fediverse #FerruccioTagliavini #FineDining #food #fortepiano #Friendica #friends #gardening #GayRights #grammar #HighCulture #humor #humour #introduction #IvorNovello #LatinLanguage #LeopoldSimoneau #mocktails #monarchy #MSDOS #NasalSnuff #nature #NewJersey #nobility #NoelCoward #NoPolitics #NVDA #OldMen #opera #operetta #operettas #pets #plants #poetry #reading #ReceivedPronunciation #Regency #RichardTauber #royalty #RoyalFamily #seniors #sherry #singing #snuff #suits #tea #theater #theatre #TitoSchipa #TWBlue #TweeseCake #UpperReceivedPronunciation #WCAG #windows7 #WindowsXP #wine #wordplay

Hello. Georgiana Brummell is not my legal name, but it is what I prefer to be called. I chose it in honour of Beau Brummell. I joined Friendica in October of 2024, after Facebook closed their Basic Mobile site (not app), since their main page is barely accessible with a screen readr. However, I noticed many accessibility issues there as well, and they will take quite awhile to be resolve. I have, therefore, chosen to switch to the Blob.cat instance of Akkoma, though I do not intend to delete my Friendica account.

I live in New Jersey and am forty-one years old. Some of my interests include studying dandyism, nineteenth-century grammar, Upper Received Pronunciation, British history, and the Regency. I like coffee, tea, wine, nasal snuff, cooking, hot baths, reading British literature, nature and historical documentaries, old BBC radio shows, gardening, hot weather, and playing cards and dice. I also love cats. In classical music, I enjoy Baroque through a bit of early Romantic, with Classical being my favourite, while in popular (listen to rarely), I usually prefer 1950's through 1970's, and some acoustic recordings. I love theatre (especially English and Viennese operettas, Edwardian musical comedies), and some Regency/Georgian plays. I am starting to learn about opera, with my main focus being singers from the 1940's and earlier, due to the change in singing style that began roughly in the 1950's. I prefer antique menswear and accessories. It's my dream to either buy a genuine Edwardian suit or have one commissioned. I love wit, wordplay, and dry humour without vulgarity. My parents are lesbians, and I am a gay rights supporter. I have been totally blind since I was two months old, due to Retinopathy of Prematurity. I am happily childfree and am not religious. My main goal in life is simply to enjoy it, and have fun learning new things along the way. I am also single and searching. If you are or know a genuine dandy, or at least, a single, childfree, intelligent, well-dressed man, preferably over sixty, please tell him about me.

Please note. I don't write about American politics, race, anticapitalism, or world affairs (wars, poverty, oppression, etc.), and will not add those who do, as I don't want it filling my timelines. While I am interested in technology to an extent (particularly website accessibility), I am not a programmer or gamer, do not use Linux,and don't care what social network you use. I tend to get along better with people much older than I, but I will accept friends twenty-one and over. I have no understanding of chronic illness, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, loneliness, etc. so if you need help with that, I'm not the one to ask. I enjoy hearing about cats, cooking or gardening adventures, animals and nature, antiques, and interesting facts and life stories.

This is my journal. Anyone can read or comment, whether or not he is a member.

dreamwidth.org

#19thCentury #accessibility #animals #BeauBrummell #BelCanto #books #blind #cats #ChildFree #ClassicalMusic #coffee #cooking #crafts #dandyism #documentaries #Dreamwidth #Edwardian #Facebook #Friendica #gardening #grammar #HighCulture #introduction #monarchy #NasalSnuff #nature #nobility #NoPolitics #NVDA #operettas #plants #reading #Regency #seniors #singing #tea #theater #theatre #TWBlue #TweeseCake #UpperReceivedPronunciation #wine

Tonight, because of the problems with TweeseCake and Blob.cat compatibility, I was reminded of TWBlue. Normally, I don't use it, because I can't edit posts. But other than that one feature, I love it! It even has a few features that TweeseCake doesn't, including the ability to view followers, those whom you follow, and blocked users. It even allows searching within posts and for people! It also allows me to view favourites, which TweeseCake has only partially implemented. There, they disappear, but here, they remain visible. I was also wrong when I said that I can't post paragraphs. It's just that, instead of hitting return as I normally would (and as in TweeseCake, for those curious), I have to hit shift+return. Interestingly, I found that I can edit my Friendica profile perfectly, excluding Friendica-only features such as keywords. Remember, both of these clients are made to work with Mastodon, and the only reason they can work with other platforms is their compatibility with it. Anyway, when I try to edit my profile on Blob.cat, I can't. After I choose "Edit", nothing happens. But the most vexing thing is that TWBlue doesn't include an editing feature for posts! If anyone here works with and/or for them, can you plese either suggest this or strongly consider implementing it? It would make life so much easier and would complement the other features very well.

#accessibility #blind #Blob.cat #clients #Friendica #NVDA #ScreenReaders #TweeseCake #TWBlue #Windows

This is truly ridiculous. In order to post here, I have to use Semaphore, TWBlue or Pachli, because I can't figure out how to do it on the main site. I know I did it a few times, but it's very difficult to find and is not available as and immediate edit box. In order to read my own posts, I have to go to the main site or Pachli, because I can't do it on Semaphore or TWBlue. (Note. I figured out how to red them but can't reply on Semaphore, since there is no edit box.) So I basically have to use several sites plus an app (I almost never use apps for any websites) just to be able to use Friendica. I specifically left Facebook due to inaccessibility! Even with this mess, it's still not as horrible as there, but It would be nice to have one site where I could do it all, like on Dreamwidth, or at least one Windows client that would allow me to do everything, without having to resort to using my phone! Tweesecake was nice the few times it worked, but now, no matter what I do, I can't even get it to load. It says something about configuring and then disappears! Enafore is supposed to allow me to edit my posts, but I have no idea how to do that since there is no normal edit link or button, and half the time, when I go to my page, the edit box for me to type in isn't even there! Semaphore inserts rubbish when I'm trying to write tags, so that I have to write everything in Notepad and paste it in.

#accessibility #Android #apps #blind #clients #Dreamwidth #Facebook #friendica #twblue #Tweesecake #Windows