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To make a very long story short, I am considering entering the field of accessibility. More specifically, website testing. For those interested, I wrote about it here. If you can offer any suggestions, recommendations, etc. either here or there, please do so. I would love to hear from you!

dandylover1.dreamwidth.org/214…

The long story, for those who are interested in my background in technology and how I came to this decision, can be found here. My blind peers, in particular, may enjoy this, though it may also take you on a trip down memory lane.

dandylover1.dreamwidth.org/214…

#accessibility #blind #BlindInstituteofTechnology #blindness #coding #computers #DequeUniversity #education #FreeCodeCamp #html #NVDA #screenreaders #technology #W3Schools #websites #Windows

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Note: Despite this negative post, the people at Newsmast do take accessibility seriously and have said they would fix the issues that I mentioned earlier. So please don't let this reflect on them. I only told them about these a few days ago. Today, I found the new ones. Maybe, their site is simply not working properly for anyone at the moment.
I found yet more inaccessibility with newsmast. I went there using Supermium, and hit all the "button" links until I found the one that was for communities. I tried to follow one by entering my Friendica.world information, and told it to authorise the interaction, which is all normal and is how I joined the others when I found myself tagged in them. Then, I was sent to a page that asked me about my birthday, location, etc. I had never seen this when joining a Newsmast page, but I began doing it. There was an edit box for country, but regardless of what I typed, it kept telling me that I needed to select a country. But there was no combobox to do so, just an edit box for typing. I closed the window and tried to return to the communities page, but it kept returning me to the form where I had to enter my location, even when I specifically removed that part of the url. I'm going to try it with Firefox, which is a bit more accessible with the site (it shows some links not all unlabelled buttons), but this shouldn't be happening. I also need to figure out how to delete the cookie from Supermium so that I can visit the site without the prompt.

Update. I just went there with Firefox. I was able to find and follow a community. Again, it sent me to the location page, even when I closed the initial one that opened. Now, whenever I go there, it does the same. I guess I have to use a different browser or virtual machine every time I want to join a community, or just type a large number of tags into one post, hoping that some are communities, so that they will boost my meaningless post, just so that I might be lucky enough to land on their follow page and not the location one again. Yes, that was sarcasm. In reality, I'll just go back to my other pages that list various tags and communities to join because they work.
#accessibility #blind #blindness #Newsmast #firefox #NVDA #Supermium #Windows @newsmast.org @newsmast

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in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Hi Georgiana, thanks again for your helpful feedback.

It sounds like you're trying to follow Communities using the Newsmast app which will ask for you to create an account.

As we spoke about the other day, we know there's issues here that we need to fix and hopefully will be able to soon!

If you want to follow our Community Feeds on vanilla Mastodon, you can do so by follow them directly from your current friendica[dot]world account. (1/2)

This entry was edited (6 days ago)
in reply to Newsmast Foundation

There's a list of Community Feed accounts available here: newsmast.community/about

Or you can see them in a post here: newsmast.social/@newsmast/1118… (2/2)


Newsmast Community Feeds on Mastodon

See hand-curated, topical, feeds no matter where you call home on the Fediverse. Just add to a list, exclude from your home feed, then dip in and out whenever you want.

We’re working hard to connect knowledge across the Fediverse.

#newsmast #newsmastfoundation #mastodon #feditips


in reply to Newsmast Foundation

@The Newsmast Foundation I was using your website, not an app. The same was true the other day. It was from the communities page. Now, whenever I try to go to the main page, I'm greeted with the form.
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

We have apps on iOS, Android and on the web.

newsmast.org is a our web app which has a number of accessibility issues and bugs which we'll work on soon. For now, our Newsmast app has been placed to the side until we finish our Channel.org service (which we hope will bring in more funding).

To visit the Community Feeds on a plain Mastodon UI or through whichever application best suits you, you can access and follow them from this thread of posts: newsmast.social/@newsmast/1118… (1/2)


Newsmast Community Feeds on Mastodon

See hand-curated, topical, feeds no matter where you call home on the Fediverse. Just add to a list, exclude from your home feed, then dip in and out whenever you want.

We’re working hard to connect knowledge across the Fediverse.

#newsmast #newsmastfoundation #mastodon #feditips


in reply to Newsmast Foundation

To visit our website which explores our mission as a charity, you can visit our site here: newsmastfoundation.org/

The site is currently under a bit of maintenance so if you spot any accessibility bugs (or otherwise) please let us know! (2/2)



I really love Tweesecake. The more I use it, the more wonderful things I learn about it. I am now able to view my Local Friendica.world timeline, Home (which is basically the people whom I follow), the Federated Timeline, my Favourites/Likes, my mentions (when people Mention me), etc. all in one place! Everything is customisable, too! I only wish they made a 32-bit version, so that I could use it on all of my machines, both physical and virtual. Still, as long as I can use it on one, it's good, since I can just use NVDA Remote to access it with another. Oh, and it doesn't try to insert nonsense when I write tags! I hate when I write in text fields and receive suggestions.

tweesecake.app/

#accessibility #blind #blindness #friendica #NVDA #Tweesecake #Windows



Yay!!! I got Tweesecake to work! I couldn't understand, for the life of me, what was going on! I thought the folder was corrupted, so I redownloaded it, and whenever I started it, it kept saying "Welcome to Tweesecake", and then "Config". Then, when I tried to navigate through the window, it completely disappeared. So I thought, maybe, they had discontinued their service, but that was not the case. It turned out that this is not a fully portable app. Unlike the ones at portableapps.com, and like both Serpent UXP and IceDove UXP, it stores information in a separate folder and not just the main one. I may change this behaviour in the future. For now, I deleted the separate Tweesecake folder (in App Data), and restarted the program. And now I have a perfectly functioning Windows client, including the ability to edit my posts!

#accessibility #blind #happy #portableapp #Tweesecake #Windows

in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Look! I can reply from the same interface! haha I'm way too happy right now. I need to calm down! This is such a relief.


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

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in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Ugh! I was hoping one of the blind clients would have at least explored Friendica by now! Other than that, how is the server you're on?
in reply to Robert Kingett

@Robert Kingett I'm a very happy Friendica user and I use Tweesecake which works well with it. Do you mean that a client should be on a Friendica instance? If so, I agree.


Does anyone know what is going on with Tweesecake? It worked well until today. Now, when I start it, it shows the welcome screen and says "config", but when I try to use the arrows to select my Friendica profile, the whole program disappears. Then, when I try to restart it, I have to go to the Task Manager and end the task tree, or it will tell me that it's still running, even though I don't see it when I alt+tab through my open programs. For the first time in my life, I have to say that a phone application is better than a Windows client or even website, as I have full access to everything on Friendica with Pachli and not on Tweesecake, Semafore, or Phanpy. Obviously, I can edit things, from posts to my profile on the Friendica site, but it's not as intuitive as it could be and has strange menus and such, instead of normal links.
That is why I was seeking a simpler alternative.
#accessibility #Android #blind #Friendica #Mastodon ##Pachli Tweesecake #Windows
in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Yay! This is much better!

"I'd use blue but right now it doesn't support edits to my knowledge, which is a dealbreaker. Cake and Enafore are the only accessible Windows clients I know of that do. Enafore is pinafore which merged in all the accessibility fixes of Semaphore and is more compatible with Glitch, which is what places like the cave have switched to anyway. So unless Semaphore starts to have a major uptick in development it should be regarded as superseded by Enafore."

Taken from

fosstodon.org/@NVAccess/112002…

in reply to Georgiana Brummell

Okay. So how am I supposed to edit thing? I thought it would be decent, with a normal edit link or button. But of course, no one thinks with common sense these days! I tried the menu and selected "more" and "edit" but it did nothing! I tried looking for an edit box and found nothing. Then, I selected the checkbox and still nothing. But of course, it had a delete button. I guess it was too difficult to make an edit one, too.