tdesktop should be screen-reader friendly

[marcelremmy]

hi there,
i´m a very fan of telegram and i use it on lots of devices. great job for the lightweight feel of the messenger.
i wanted to introduce telegram to a blind user but had to realize, the (windows) client is not good to use with a screen reader, i.e. zoomtext of aisquared... the software does not even understand what to do when using the "read this" command and selecting a portion of the telegram chat window.
idk, but maybe this is only a small fix so the chat messages are understood as text inside a frame and the message input field is treated like an textarea (which would be readalout while typing).
it would increase for accessibility of that otherwise modern chat system.

i tried the web version of telegram which is not usably for the blind either. at least the message text is recognized then -> "read this" command reads the chat but still the user would need to select the correct portion of the chat. is there are plain-text only version of the web app available?
best regards

[Aokromes]

Maybe now with the chat background option and using black or white background can do the job?

[marcelremmy]

the changes u mention might work for visually impaired users that still have sight. that could work imho. but if the user relies on text to speech functionality the speech engine would need to understand that there´s a window with text in it. i had zoomtext to test, but it didn´t even get that the window (of the tdesktop client) contained text.
idk, i hoped that like someone pointing me to an accessible fork of the client which drops visual eye candy for plain information.

[Aokromes]

Well, for linux you have text mode telegram, idk if that can do the job for you.

[noquierouser]

@Aokromes Those are not valid solutions for a non-Linux user, and much less a visually impaired user as well.

The application needs to check and comply to address accesibility issues in the UI aspect, using the tools provided by the UI toolkit, focusing on supporting Assistive Tools.

Maybe its worth checking this page in order to know how to address this issue, which is not a minor issue in my opinion.

[mrkiko]

Guys... The iOS app isn't accessible with VoiceOver on iPhone, this app seems
not accessible (on Windows at least), the OS X version seems not accessible ...
Hoping things get better. Iam a blind user, and after sending various feedback
over the iOS App and leaving various reviews on the App Store, nothing changed.
The CLI version might do the work, but that isn't confortable enough. the only
really confortable solution I found is a pidgin plugin, telegram-purple. Very
interesting project. But Telegram as whole should act differently in
accessibility terms in my opinion. If what telegram wants to promote is
privacy, which in turns may enable freedom of speech and communication, then
accessibility is very very important. We can't search for something "doing the
job": an effective solution is needed, and soon. I understand that many, if not
all, developers of this project are volunteers, and my intention is not to
impose naything on anyone, for sure. But think about it: how many Telegram
Apps for different devices? How much time passed since initial releases? And no
accessibility still? By the record, not even the Android app is accessible (it
wasn't last time we checked, if we didn't do something wrong). Hoping I am
wrong and someone can point me in the right direction in case.
Thank you anyway for your work as a whole,
Enrico

[ivmirx]

@mrkiko on Mac there's an alternative client called Telegram Messenger, you can get it in Mac App Store. It's accessible since it's done in native Cocoa UI.

[mrkiko]

Thank you for your hints. I am not actually a Mac OS X user, but this hint is a good one. Thank you very much, Enrico

[ymmer]

as i ran into this again and seeing only alternatives being discussed:

how about making the text messages in the active message window selectable by key strokes? i found that the contacts can be switched by ALT+Arrow Up/Down or CTRL+PgUp/Dn so this is feasible. now, only the messages should be selected by something like Shift+ALT+Arrows. after they are selected the content can STRG+C(opied).

this way there might be a way blind users can select and copy parts of the conversation and have them read from clipboard. right now i do not know how to this without the mouse. that would help imho.

the optimal solution would still be a switch in the settings that would allow for more telegram-cli style messaging inside the tdesktop app, implicating that would produce text content readable by Zoomtext, JAWS, NVDA and other solutions.

[rkingett]

I am a blind windows user. One way to make the program accessible, if it is not already, is to make a Miranda NG plugin for it. Does anyone have an accessible windows client that will work with NVDA?

[dreinn]

unfortunately Telegram team is absolutely insensitive to these kind of problems. I contacted many times for having help with the iOs app, and I obtained only a thing: the silence. I'm really angry because I'd like to use it, many friends are there and I can't chat, use bot, because developers are not interested to bring their products accessible for visual impaired.

[john-preston]

@dreinn I'm afraid the only thing I can currently suggest for the desktop is to use web version at https://web.telegram.org, I hope it is completely screen reader friendly (as is the browser it is opened in).