Category: tutorials

There are 19 posts filed in tutorials (this is page 1 of 2).

What is This?

This is the fourth in a series of posts that explains how to use Discord if you are also a iOS voiceOver user. If you are unsure of what Discord is or whether or not you wish to use it, please see the dedicated page for this guide for more information.

 

What is covered in This Post?

This post details how to participate in both text and voice chat in Discord for iOS. We then have a final thoughts section, since this is where many of you will have the information you need to use Discord.

 

Before We Begin: A Word About Keyboard shortcuts

At this time, there do not appear to be keyboard shortcuts for the iOS platform. There does seem to be quite the demand for it, however, so stay tuned.

 

Text Chatting

This is the primary way to use Discord. If you’ve been using VoiceOver on your iOS device for any length of time, many of the methods you use to navigate text chat will be similar to other messaging apps you’ve used. If this is your first time, you’ll be happy to know that the skills you learn here can be used in other apps. Let’s begin.

The chat Window

The first thing to do is to enter a server, and then pick a text channel within that server. If you’ve joined a public server, you will most likely start out in a welcome channel, and you will probably be able to find the server rules and guidelines for how to navigate and use the channels in the server. As a general rule, regular members do not have permission to actually send messages in these types of channels.

Regardless of whether or not you can send messages, you can read the messages of a channel if you have access. If you know you’ve selected a channel that lets you send messages and can’t find the message box, or if you are unable to find the messages sent by other users, make sure you’ve activated the chat tab in the bottom left corner of the expanded drawer screen.

A Word About NSFW Channels

If you navigate to a channel that is called NSFW, or it has a different name but the admin has designated NSFW, you will first be asked to confirm that you are of age and are willing to view NSFW content. The continue button is recognized as a button by screen readers, so find and activate that, and you’re ready to go.

Reading Messages

Once you’ve selected a text channel, you can swipe with one finger to move through the messages. Each message has the name of the user that VoiceOver recognizes as a button, and this is followed by the message. If you double-tap the user button, you will be presented with their server roles, as well as the option to direct message them if they allow it. You can also react to messages.

Adding Reactions

You can use emojis to add reactions to messages you read. To do this, find the message you want to react to, and double-tap and hold. You will presented with a list of possible reactions, as well as actions you can take on the message like quote or copy the text of the message. Double-tap to choose your action or reaction.

Revealing Hidden Content

To reveal hidden content, find the button that says, “spoiler”, and activate it. You can also make it so that no content is hidden in the “Text and Emojis” section of your user settings.

Viewing Files

To access an uploaded file, double-tap the button or link with the file name. You will either open or be prompted to save the file depending on the file type.

Sending Messages

To send messages, tap the bottom center of the screen with one finger to bring focus to the message box. Voiceover will say “message”, followed by the word “Hashtag” and the name of the channel (e.g., “message hashtag General”). Double-tap this, and you will be presented with the software keyboard. Type your message, then find and activate the send button. If you’re using an external keyboard, you can press the enter key to send a message. Here are some other things you can do with messages.

  • Find and double-tap the emoji button to open the emoji picker. You can also use the iOS emoji keyboard to send standard emoji.
  •  Find and double-tap the upload media file button to upload a file.
  •  Double-tap and hold a message you sent to have the option to erase and edit the message. Press escape to cancel.
  •  Insert the at sign followed by a person’s name to mention that user. You can also type part of the name, then drag one finger above the message box to find suggestions. Double-tap the suggestion to select it.

 

Voice Chatting

While there are fewer steps to actually using voice chat, you should go into your audio video settings and adjust the following:

  • Make sure Discord has access to the camera and microphone.
  •  Adjust your input volume and output volume.
  •  Disable autogain control.
  •  Run a test of your audio.

Connecting to a Voice Channel and Using video

To connect to a voice channel, select it from the list of server channels. Next, find and activate the “join Voice” button at the bottom of the screen. You will hear a tone letting you know you’ve connected, and everyone can hear you. It’s probably a good idea to do a practice run so you can find the mute and deafen buttons. To video chat, find the camera button after you’ve joined voice and double-tap it.

To disconnect from a voice channel, find the disconnect button. You’ll want to do this, since you can only be connected to one voice channel at a time.

 

Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, you now have the essential information to actively participate in Discord servers. The easiest way to master the service is to just use it. 

Next Step

The logical next step is to try your hand at running your own Discord server. I have no immediate plans to cover this, but remain open to the possibility. In the meantime, the Internet has plenty of articles from the official Discord help and tech bloggers on the subject. Remember that Discord is made to bring all kinds of people with different skill sets together, so nobody is under any obligation to administer or moderate a server to be an effective Discord user. So long as you’re following server rules and not going out of your way to be less than a decent person, you’re Discording right.

What is This?

This is the second in a series of posts that explains how to use Discord if you use Voiceover on your iOS device. If you’re unsure of what Discord is or if you want to use it, please go read the introduction post. You can also check out this dedicated guide page for a list of all posts in the series.

What is Covered in This Post?

This post describes the layout of the Discord user interface for the iOS platform. This post also gives a walkthrough of the user settings, and makes suggestions of changes you can make to give yourself a smoother experience.

 

The Discord User Interface (UI)

Presentation

 

The Discord iOS app has tried to incorporate as many features as can be found on the Discord desktop program. The result is that there is too much content for a single screen, so successful navigation of the UI is dependent on use of the “Toggle Drawer” button located in the top left of the Discord main screen. When this button is activated with the Voiceover double-tap, you are presented with the following items at the top of the screen. You can navigate through these by dragging your finger, or by swiping right or left with one finger.

  • “Direct Messages Button”: Double-tapping this will bring up a list of conversations between you and at least one other person.
  •  A list of the servers to which you currently belong. Voiceover recognizes these as buttons, and double-tapping one of these will take you to that server.
  •  “Add Server Button”: Double-tapping this will allow you to search for and join servers, discussed in the next post.

The middle of the screen is populated by an “Invite Button”, which will allow you to invite other users to the server you are currently in, as well as channel categories and channels in that server. Servers and channels will be discussed in the next post. For now, they’re just part of the interface.

At the bottom of the screen are the following five tabs. You can activate these by double-tapping them.

  • “Chat Tab”: This brings up the conversation for the currently selected text channel.
  •  “Friends tab”: Brings up your friends list and allows you to add friends by their Discord handle.
  •  Quick Switcher Tab”; Allows you to quickly switch between servers and channels by searching for them.
  • Mentions Tab: if you’ve been mentioned in a server, you can find it here instead of going through each server individually.
  •  “Settings Tab”: Allows you to adjust user and app settings.

You can collapse the drawer by scrubbing with two fingers at any time.

The Rest of the Main Screen

If you open the Discord app and do not expand the drawer, you will find a ‘Search Button”, which will let you search for messages in the current server, and a “Member List Button”, which displays a list of the members in the current server. The rest of the screen is dedicated to a list of messages in the current channel, as well as the chat box.

User Settings

To access the user settings, expand the drawer in the top left of the screen. Next, find and double-tap the “Settings tab” in the bottom right corner. You will be presented with the following options and elements, which you can swipe through and double-tap on to change each preference to your liking. After making the desired changes, find and double-tap the “Back Button” in the top left corner to return to the main settings screen.

  • An unlabeled button that you can double-tap to set or change your user avatar.
  •  Heading with your Discord handle. For example, Changeling#5469 (spoken as “Changeling number 5469 Heading”).
  •  A set status button to change your Discord presence. (e.g., “Set Status Online Button”.)
  •  Account: Contains options to customize your profile, manage your contact info and password, and manage two-factor authentication.
  •  Privacy & Safety: Contains options for who can find and contact you, data control, etc.
  •  Connections: Contains options for managing apps with access to your Discord account, as well as social media connections.
  •  Scan QR Code: lets you log into Discord on a second device by scanning the QR code instead of entering you user credentials.
  •  Nitro Settings; A block of text that indicates the following options have to deal with discord nitro.
    • . Get nitro: Where you can sign up for Discord Nitro, the paid version of discor.
    •  Server boost: You can pay money to boost (sponsor) a server to give it and its owners special perks.
    •  Nitro Gifting: you can give Nitro to someone else.
  •  App Settings: A block of text that indicates the next settings have to do specifically with the iOS app.
    •  Voice/Voice Activity: Where you can adjust your preferences for voice chat. Activating this may cause VoiceOver to come through the earpiece of your device..
    •  Appearance: Where you can set the theme of Discord. Mine is spoken as “Appearance dark Button”.
    •  Language: Where you can set the language for Discord. Mine is spoken as “Language english U.S.”.
    •  Text & Images: Settings for adjusting how text and images are handled, and this is where you can adjust spoiler display settings.
    •  Web Browser; Where you can choose which browser opens links you click in Discord.
    •  Notifications: Where you can adjust your app notifications, but not server/channel specific notifications.
    •  Support: Where you can get help with the app.
    •  Upload debug logs: Where you can submit crash reports.
    • Acknowledgements: Takes you to a web page that gives credit to projects and people that power discord.
    •  Change Log: View the list of recent changes.
  •  Restore Nitro Subscription: Used to restore a purchase.
  •  Logout: Signs you out.

 

Suggested Changes

Here are some suggestions of settings you can change to make your user experience better. The out-of-box experience is quite nice, though.

Under Account

You may wish to consider setting a profile photo. While I recognize that having an avatar may not be a priority for most of my readers, the fact is having a unique avatar is how server admins who may be visually oriented to the world distinguish you from a spammer. To set your avatar:

  • Expand the drawer in the top left corner of the main screen.
  •  Activate the settings tab in the bottom right corner of the resulting screen.
  •  Activate the unlabeled button in the top left corner of the settings screen.
  •  Choose your photo. If this is your first time, you may need to allow access to photos.
  •  Confirm your selection.

Under Notifications

It is not currently possible to have incoming messages read to you by a cool robot on the mobile platform. CONGRATULATIONS! You don’t need to worry about it.

 

Next Steps

Now that you have an understanding of the Discord UI and an idea of how navigation is going to work, you’re ready to join a server. The next post will explain how to join servers, as well as customize your settings for a specific server. In the meantime, make sure you have discord set the way you think you’ll like it.

What is This?

This is the third in a series of posts that explains how to use the Discord service if you are also a VoiceOver user for iOS. If you are unsure of what Discord is, whether or not you wish to use the service, or both, please see the dedicated page for this guide for more information.

 

What is Covered in This Post?

This post explains servers and channels. We then take a look at how to join servers and adjust individual server settings. Finally, we look at how to move between channels.

Not Covered in This Post

This post does not cover the administration of servers. While my experience with this process is that it is doable with a screen reader for the most part, the first few posts in this guide are designed to get new users able to participate as quickly as possible.

 

What is a Server?

In the world of Discord, a server is an extremely customizeable group chat (though separate from a private group chat). It can have a specific common interest, or it can just be one someone hosts just for experimentation and research. Each server can host any number of different subtopics, and these are called channels, detailed later in this post.

 

How Do I Find a Server?

There are a couple of ways to do this. The most direct way is to use an invite link, which you can get from a friend or admin of a server, or from a website of someone or something that also has a Discord presence. 

Once you click an invite link, you’ll be prompted to accept the invitation and join. It presents as a button, so navigate to it and activate it. When you first join a server, it’s important to make sure you read the rules so you don’t upset anyone or get kicked out.

You can also join servers by searching for them on the Internet. There are a few websites dedicated to this, but the simplest way I’ve experienced is to just Google the topic that interests you and include “Discord” as apart of the search. 

Customizing Server Settings

To customize server settings, expand the drawer in the top left corner of the screen. Next, navigate passed the list of your servers and “Add server Button” until you hear the name of the current server, followed by the word “server” and “Button” (e.g., “The Starship Changeling (Server) Button”). Double-tap that button, and you will be presented with the server settings. You can exit this screen at any time by performing a two-finger scrub.

Server Boost

You can help promote a server you run or particularly enjoy. This is not a free service, and you will be asked for payment information if you choose to set it up.

Invite

If the admins allow it, you can invite people to join the server. You can invite people you’ve been in private conversations with, or copy a generated invite link and send it to a friend.

Notifications

This is where you can adjust which notifications you receive. You’ll want to do this based on how active the server is. You can choose from nothing, mentions, or all. Later, we’ll talk about how to adjust notifications for specific channels.

Mark as Read

You can mark an entire server as read if you have too many messages to actually read.

Change Nickname

You can have a nickname specific to each server. I do this so that my name in certain servers matches my name on Steam and Patreon to make sure I’m added to the correct channels.

Hide Muted Channels

If you have muted a channel, you can take it out of the list for yourself. More on muting channels shortly.

Allow Direct messages

You can choose whether or not to let server members message you.

Leave Server

Use this to make a quick exit if you discover you’ve entered a server that’s not a good fit for you.

Moving Between Servers

To move between servers, expand the drawer in the top left corner of the main screen. Find the button that matches the server you wish to move to and double-tap it. Find and double-tap the chat tab in the bottom left corner of the screen to collapse the drawer and view the chat for that server. Now that we have a server or two under our belt, let’s talk about channels.

 

What is a Channel?

A channel is a subcategory in a server. They can be used to distinguish between different topics of conversation, separate NSFW or adult content from the general chat, etc. Admins can allow access to channels to only certain server members, too. A channel can be a text chat, or voice chat, and these can be further categorized depending on the preferences of the admins.

Changing Channels

The most direct way to change channels is to expand the drawer in the top left corner of the main screen, navigate passed the list of your servers and the name of the current server, and then to the list of channels in the currently selected server. You will find categories and channels, both of which present as buttons. If the voiceOver focus is on a category, you will hear the name of the category, the word “category”, whether or not the category is expanded or collapsed, and the word “button” (e.g., “text channels. Category. Expanded. Button.”). Double-tapping a category will expand or collapse it.

If the voiceOver focus is on a channel, you will hear the name of the channel, whether or not it is a text or voice channel, and the word “Button” (e.g., “General. Text channel. Button.”). Double-tapping a channel will take you to that channel. This also collapses the drawer and displays the chat for that channel. If you’ve selected a voice channel, you’ll be presented with your audio settings and a button labeled “Join Voice”. Double-tapping this button will connect you to voice chat.

You can also use the Quick Switcher tab when the drawer is expanded to quickly move between servers in channels. The quick switcher is powered by a text search that works across all servers to which you belong, so you can easily find all the general chats in all your servers.

Customizing Notifications for Servers

You can set it so that you get specific notifications for channels in servers. I personally use this to mute channels that have primarily visual media, but you can also use it to keep a special eye on a topic of particular interest. To do this, open the server settings, then go to notification Settings. You will have the following options.

  • Mute: mutes all notifications for all channels in the server except for when you are mentioned.
  •  Server Notification Settings
    •  All messages.
    •  Only mentions.
    •  Nothing.
  •  Suppress @everyone and @here: Prevent you from being part of mass mentions like live streaming announcements.
  •  Suppress All Role Mentions: Server members can have roles, and these roles can be mentioned. Each member can opt out.
  •  Mobile push notifications: Choose if an individual server can send you push notifications.
  •  Notification overrides: You can customize notifications for a specific channel or category in the server.

 

Next Steps

The next major step is to learn how to participate in chat. In preparation for this, you may wish to review the official list of Discord keyboard shortcuts. These will be discussed as they come up, but this is also where you can find a quick reference.

What is This?

This is the first in a series of posts that explains how to use Discord if you also use VoiceOver to use your iOS device. It is not intended to replace the documentation for either Discord or VoiceOver, but rather to explain how you can use the two softwares together to have an enjoyable user experience.

What is Covered in This Guide?

This guide will explain what Discord is, its main features, how to navigate servers and channels, how to participate in chat, and how to adjust settings. Due to the time and effort required to keep the various versions of this guide current, I have no plans to take things beyond the basic user experience.

What is the Intended Audience?

This guide is intended for people who want to use Discord and need VoiceOver to effectively use their iOS device. Beyond that, it is intended for people who like user directions that contain more detail than just lists of gestures. While this is a set of directions, it is styled to read like a conversation between you and me. When I published Changeling’s Guide to Mastodon for Screen Readers, the style of the guide seemed to be its best received feature.

What is Covered in the Rest of This Post?

The rest of this post answers the question of what Discord is, and ends with a walkthrough for creating an account. The final section will offer suggestions of things you can do to prepare for the next post in the series.

 

What is Discord

According to its website, Discord is a free, secure solution for people who want to chat and hang out. These chats are held in groups called servers, and these servers can be host to different categories called channels to help organize the conversation. The advantage here is that unlike a Skype or WhatsApp group where every message in the conversation gets sent to everyone in the group, a user can configure Discord so that they only receive notifications from certain channels, or on certain conversation topics, from a server. It is intended to keep people from feeling like they are in a sensory overload version of hell caused by too many notifications. Users can also live stream to servers, or voice chat in designated channels on servers. Like any service, the first step to using it is to create an account.

 

Creating an Account

Before You Begin

The first thing you’ll want to do is download the appropriate version of the Discord software for your operating system. This guide will focus primarily on the iOS version, but you can also download it for Mac, as well as Windows and Android. If you’re not using any of these, or if you want to test drive the service before installing software, you can use Discord from your preferred web browser.

To install Discord, go to discordapp.com on the device on which you will be using the service, and select the download link. The site will detect the appropriate version of your software based on your browser. Once you’ve done that perform the normal steps for installing software on your machine, and you’ll be ready to create an account. You can also search for Discord on the iOS Appstore.

If you want to run Discord from a browser, you’ll want to create an account first, and then select the “Open Discord in Your Browser” button.

To Create an Account

Go to discordapp.com/register, and provide your e-mail , your preferred user name, and a password then click continue. You’ll then be prompted to set up a server, but you can click “Skip” for now. The final step is verifying your email address, which involves clicking a link in an email sent by the Discord service.

A Quick Word About Usernames

When you sign up for a service, the process usually goes something like type your name into the box, see your name is being used by someone else, then choose a username that has your name with a long string of numbers after it. With Discord, each user is designed a tag, or the hashtag (#) followed by a four (4) digit code that accompanies your user name, so you can always have your desired username in chats. For example, my Discord info is Changeling#5469.

 

Next Steps

This post explained what Discord is and guided you through the registration process. If you haven’t yet done so, you’ll want to install the Discord program. You might also consider making a list of your interests to help you find appropriate servers for you to join. The next post will discuss how to adjust user settings, as well as finding and joining servers.

Changeling’s Guide to Discord for Screen Reader Users: Chatting

What is This?

This is the fourth in a series of posts that explains how  to use Discord if you are also a screen reader user. If you are unsure of what Discord is or whether or not you wish to use it, please see the dedicated page for this guide for more information.

What is covered in This Post?

This post describes how to participate in both text and voice chat in Discord. We then have a final thoughts section, since this is where many of you will have the information you need to use Discord effectively.

Before We Begin: A Word About Keyboard shortcuts

Since Discord was originally intended to be the ultimate chatting app for gamers, it has in it a number of keyboard shortcuts, and this is also a win for screen reader users. Since the needed detail of this guide makes for long posts, I’ve decided not to include a complete list of keyboard shortcuts, but rather to talk about them as they are needed for the guide. Here are the links to keyboard shortcuts for Windows, and for MacOS. At this time, there do not appear to be keyboard shortcuts for the mobile platforms. You can also get a complete and up-to-date list of keyboard shortcuts by pressing Control+Slash in the discord program. Finally, it is possible to create your own keyboard shortcuts (key bindings), which we will cover out of necessity when we discuss voice chatting.

Keyboard Shrotcuts for Reading and Interacting with Messages

As of September, 2021, navigating the method for reviewing messages with the Discord keyboard shortucts is now accessible. this process is described in detail in the next sections, but it is important to note that your screen reader’s browse mode must be disabled for this to work. If you are using JAWS, you may also need to take the additional step of turning off the use of hotkeys for html documents.

Text Chatting

Unlike platforms that came before it, Discord encourages text chatting, rather than just including the ability as an afterthought. Those of you who have been following along will know that the Discord interface presents like an HTML environment, so much of your ability to text chat will depend on how comfortable you are moving around web pages in general. On a different but related note, there will also be times when you will need to let your screen reader know to pass keys through directly to Discord, so you might want to consult your screen reader’s documentation on how to do that. You will also want to get comfortable with your screen reader’s ability to emulate the mouse pointer. With these things in mind, let’s talk about the chat window.

The chat Window

The first thing to do is to enter a server, and then pick a text channel within that server. If you’ve joined a public server, you will most likely start out in a welcome channel, and you will probably be able to find the server rules and guidelines for how to navigate and use the channels in the server. As a general rule, regular members do not have permission to actually send messages in these types of channels.

Regardless of whether or not you can send messages, you can read the messages of a channel if you have access. The first thing you’ll encounter is a button that has the name of the server, and it will be collapsed by default. Remember, this is what you would click to adjust server settings.

Following that is the user area and all of the options it contains. The quick switcher comes next, which you can also access by pressing Control+K. After all of these things, you will encounter a notification of new unread messages if there are any. You can press Escape to mark a channel read, or Shift+Escape to mark all the messages in a server as read. you can also press Tab at the top of the window to enter keyboard navigation mode, and use F6 to move between the servers, channels, and messages lists for the currently selected channel.

The next section has a list of channel categories and the channels within them. Categories present buttons, and the channels within present as links if they are text channels, or buttons if they are voice channels. For a smoother experience, use the quick switcher, or use Alt along with the up or down arrows to move between channels. If you want to see which channels have unread messages, you can move between them with Alt combined with Shift and the up or down arrows.

A Word About NSFW Channels

If you navigate to a channel that is called NSFW, or it has a different name but the admin has designated NSFW, you will first be asked to confirm that you are of age and are willing to view NSFW content. The continue button is recognized as a button by screen readers, so find and activate that, and you’re ready to go. You may also be asked to verify your birthday. if so, use the dropdown to enter your date of birth, then proceed to the oh so interestingly forbidden content.

Reading Messages

Using browse Mode

For each message, the user is displayed as a level 2 heading and a button that has their nickname, as well as the time they sent the message. If you activate this button, you will be dropped into a box where you can send the user a private message, or navigate away from that and you can view a person’s roles in the server and view their profile. Press escape to return to the channel.

You can use heading jump commands to move through a conversation. Be aware, however, that if a person sends multiple messages before another message from a user comes in, these are not separated by headings, but rather each message is on its own line, so you might unintentionally skip messages.

Using Keyboard Navigation

You can also read messages by entering keyboard navigation mode, pressing F6 to move to the messages area, and using up and down arrows to navigate the list. Remember to turn browse mode off, as well as the use of HTML hotkeys.

Adding Reactions

Using browse Mode

You can use emojis to add reactions to messages you read. To do this, you need to right click the message, then activate the button that says “add reaction”. You can, as of May, 2020, press Shift and F10 like you do in File Explorer to right click. You can also tell your screen reader to move the mouse pointer to where your review cursor is, then right click. If another user has already added a reaction, then the button can be found using standard navigation.. Once you activate the button, your focus will be placed in an autocomplete list of available emojis. Use your up and down arrows to review the options, and press Enter to add it as a reaction. Right clicking also reveals other actions you can take on a message, including but not limited to copying the message, quoting the message, and viewing the user’s profile. You can also find the “more” button after each message and click it to find those actions, but it is inconsistent at the time of this writing.

Using Keyboard Navigation

To add a reaction to a message using keyboard navigation, move to the message, then press the plus (+) key. You’ll be placed in the list of possible reactions, so find the one you want and press enter. You can also reply to a message by pressing R, and your focus will be moved to the message edit box where you can type your response and send by pressing Enter.

Revealing Hidden Content

To reveal hidden content, find the button that says, “spoiler”, and activate it. You can also make it so that no content is hidden in the “Text and Emojis” section of your user settings.

Viewing Files

To access an uploaded file, click the button or link with the file name. You will either open or be prompted to save the file depending on the file type.

Sending Messages

To get to the edit field where you can send a message, press the tab key, or use your screen reader’s jump command for edit fields. Next, type your message and press enter to send. If you wish to add a line break without sending a message, press Shift and the Enter key to insert it. Here are some other things you can do with messages:

  • Press Control+E to open the emoji picker.
  • Press Control+Shift+U to upload a file.
  • Press slash followed by one of these:
    • Spoiler to mark content as a spoiler and hide it.
    • Tts to make your message be spoken by a robot.
  • Press the up arrow in the edit box to erase and edit your last message. Press escape to cancel.
  • Insert the at (@) sign followed by a person’s name to mention that user.
  •  Insert the hashtag (#) before a channel name to directly link to that channel.

Voice and Video Chatting

While there are fewer steps to actually using voice chat, you should go into your audio video settings and adjust the following:

  • Set your preferred audio input device.
  • Adjust your input volume and output volume.
  • Disable autogain control.
  • Run a test of your audio.
  • Enable Push to talk, and disable automatic voice activation.
  •  Choose your preferred video input device.

Push to Talk and Key Bindings

When you enable push to talk for the first time, you’ll be prompted to set a key binding, or shortcut key that activates the feature. Find and activate the record button, then navigate to the edit box. Push your desired key combination, then tab to the stop recording button and activate it. Keep in mind that the key combination is global, so try to pick one that doesn’t conflict with any other programs. Once you’ve changed these settings, remember to click the save button at the bottom. Finally, you can add other key bindings in the “key bindings” section of your user settings.

Connecting to a Voice Channel

To connect to a voice channel, find and activate the button with the name of that channel. You should hear a tone indicating that you’ve connected. You’re now all set to chat using your voice. Remember to press and hold your key binding for push to talk while speaking. If you want to share video, find the “Turn on camera” button and activate it. You can also use the “Share Screen” button to share your screen.

To disconnect from a voice channel, find the disconnect button. You’ll want to do this, since you can only be connected to one voice channel at a time.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, you now have the essential information to actively participate in Discord servers. The easiest way to master the service is to just use it. Once you get comfortable with the stable version, you can download Discord Canary to get the latest improvements on a faster timeline.

Next Step

The logical next step is to try your hand at running your own Discord server. I have no immediate plans to cover this, but remain open to the possibility. In the meantime, the Internet has plenty of articles from the official Discord help and tech bloggers on the subject. Remember that Discord is made to bring all kinds of people with different skill sets together, so nobody is under any obligation to administer or moderate a server to be an effective Discord user. So long as you’re following server rules and not going out of your way to be less than a decent person, you’re Discording right.

hangeling’s Guide to Discord for Screen Reader Users: Servers and Channels

What is This?

This is the third in a series of posts that explains how to use the Discord service if you are also a screen reader user. If you are unsure of what Discord is, whether or not you wish to use the service, or both, please see the dedicated page for this guide for more information.

What is Covered in This Post?

This post explains servers and channels. We then take a look at how to join servers and adjust individual server settings, as well as move between multiple servers. Finally, we look at how to move between channels.

Not Covered in This Post

This post does not cover the administration of servers. While my experience with this process is that it is doable with a screen reader for the most part, the first few posts in this guide are designed to get new users able to participate as quickly as possible. Since administrating a server is a bit more advanced, I may cover it at some point in a separate post. It really just depends on how many people I think will pay attention to such content.

What is a Server?

In the world of Discord, a server is an extremely customizable  group chat (though separate from a private group chat). It can have a specific common interest, or it can just be for experimentation and research. Each server can host any number of different subtopics, and these are called channels, detailed later in this post.

How Do I Find a Server?

There are a couple of ways to do this. The most direct way is to use an invite link, which you can get from a friend or admin of a server, or from a website of someone or something that also has a Discord presence. For example, here is a link to my own server: http://changeling.mc/DiscordServer.

Once you click an invite link, you’ll be prompted to accept the invitation and join. Join presents as a button, so navigate to it and activate it. When you first join a server, it’s important to make sure you read the rules so you don’t upset anyone or get kicked out.

You can also join servers by searching for them on the Internet. There are a few websites dedicated to this, but the simplest way I’ve experienced is to just Google the topic that interests you and include “Discord” as apart of the search. You can also use the add new server option within the server treeview at the bottom of the server list to search for servers.

Customizing Server Settings

To customize server settings, from within a server you’ve joined, find and activate the button that has the server name and is collapsed by default. Your screen reader will indicate that it is exiting virtual/browse mode, and you will be in a menu you can navigate with the arrows. When you hear the option you want, press Enter.

Server Boost

You can help promote a server you run or particularly enjoy. This is not a free service, and you will be asked for payment information if you choose to set it up.

Invite People

If the admins allow it, you can invite people to join the server. You can invite people you’ve been in private conversations with, or copy a generated invite link and send it to a friend.

Notification Settings

This is where you can adjust which notifications you receive. You’ll want to do this based on how active the server is. You can choose from nothing, mentions, or all. Later, we’ll talk about how to adjust notifications for specific channels.

Privacy Settings

You can choose whether or not you wish to allow server members to send you direct messages.

Change Nickname

You can have a nickname specific to each server. I do this so that my name in certain servers matches my name on Steam and Patreon to make sure I’m added to the correct channels.

Hide Muted Channels

If you have muted a channel, you can take it out of the list for yourself. More on muting channels shortly.

Leave Server

Use this to make a quick exit if you discover you’ve entered a server that’s not a good fit for you.

Roles

It is increasingly common for servers to only allow users access to channels after they have picked roles. There is usually a specific channel set aside for roles, and each role has an emoji you click to react to the message and choose a role. Since reading and reacting to messqages hasn’t been covered yet, use standard navigation to read and review the options that are available to you, and press the button that corresponds to the role you’d like to be assigned.

Moving Between Servers

Servers are presented in a treeview within the HTML environment. You can interact with the treeview and use the up and down arrows to select a server, and enter it by pressing enter. You can also press control along with 1-0 to move between the first ten servers in your list, or use Control and Alt along with the up and down arrows to move between servers. Finally, you can press Control+K to open a search and move to a server by typing its name.

Arranging the Server list

There is now an accessible method for dragging and dropping servers in your preferred order using a screen reader. To change the order of your servers, do the following:

  1.  Navigate to the server treeview and press Enter to interact.
  2.  Arrow to the server you want to move and press Control+D. Your screen reader will announce that the server has been picked up.
  3.  Press the up or down arrow to move the server to your desired position in the list. (Note: If you are using JAWS, you may need to turn off the use of Quick Keys for this step to function properly.)
  4.  Press Escape to stop dragging.
  5.  Repeat the process for each server you wish to move.

Now that we have a server or two under our belt, let’s talk about channels.

What is a Channel?

A channel is a subcategory in a server. They can be used to distinguish between different topics of conversation, separate NSFW or adult content from the general chat, etc. Admins can allow access to channels to only certain server members, too. A channel can be a text chat, or voice chat.

Changing Channels

The most direct way to change channels is to use your screen reader’s list jump command to navigate passed the list of your servers and the name of the current server, and then to the list of channels in the currently selected server. You will find categories and channels. The categories are buttons that can be collapsed or expanded, and the text channels within them show as links, while the voice channels appear as buttons. If your screen reader’s focus is on a category, you will hear the name of the category, the word “category”, whether or not the category is expanded or collapsed, and the word “button” (e.g., “text channels. Category. Expanded. Button.”). Activating a category button will expand or collapse it.

If your screen reader’s focus is on a channel, you will hear the name of the channel, whether or not it is a text or voice channel, and the word “Button,” or “link” (e.g., “General. Text channel. Button.”). Activating a channel button will take you to that channel, and your focus will be placed in the message box. If you’ve selected a voice channel, you’ll be automatically connected to voice chat.

You can also change channels by pressing Alt along with the up or down arrow key to move between channels. For the quickest movement, you can press control+K to open a search to find a channel by name.

When you use the search, you may belong to multiple servers that have a channel of the same name (e.g., most servers have a general text channel and voice channel). In this case, typing your search term and pressing Enter will take you to the first search result, not always the server and channel you want. If this happens, type your search term, then navigate away from the edit box, and use your arrow to find the results, spoken as {channel category server} (e.g., “general WELCOME BACK TO THE POD Sounds Fake But Okay”) When you hear the channel and server you want, press the spacebar.

 

You can also move between areas of the Discord screen by pressing F6 to move you between servers, channels, messages, etc. Using Shift+F6 will move you backward.

 

Customizing Notifications for Channels

You can set it so that you get specific notifications for channels. I personally use this to mute channels that have primarily visual media, but you can also use it to keep a special eye on a topic of particular interest. To do this, open the server settings, then go to notification Settings, and navigate to the level 5 heading that reads “Channel overrides”. From here, you can search for a channel by name, or choose it from the dropdown, and choose from no notifications, mentions, or all.

If you’re using the dropdown, make sure you’ve turned off your screen readers browse or virtual cursor function before pressing the down arrow on the menu. When you’ve finished, click “Done”.

Additional notification Settings for Servers

Here are some other settings you can adjust for server notifications.

  • Mute: mutes all notifications for all channels in the server except for when you are mentioned.
  •  Server Notification Settings
    •  All messages.
    •  Only mentions.
    •  Nothing.
  •  Suppress @everyone and @here: Prevent you from being part of mass mentions like live streaming announcements.
  •  Suppress All Role Mentions: Server members can have roles, and these roles can be mentioned. Each member can opt out.
  •  Mobile push notifications: Choose if an individual server can send you push notifications.

Next Steps

The next major step is to learn how to participate in chat. In preparation for this, you may wish to review the official list of Discord keyboard shortcuts. These will be discussed as they come up, but that link can serve as a quick reference. You may also want to review and adjust your audio and video settings.

Changeling’s Guide to Discord for Screen Readers: Navigating the User Interface and User Settings

What is This?

This is the second in a series of posts that explains how to use Discord if you also use a screen reader to access your computer and the Internet. If you’re unsure of what Discord is or if you want to use it, please go read the introduction post. You can also check out this dedicated guide page for a list of all posts in the series.

What is Covered in This Post?

This post describes the layout of the Discord user interface, and documents some common differences between screen readers. Finally, this post gives a walkthrough of the user settings, and makes suggestions of changes you can make to give yourself a smoother experience.

The Discord User Interface (UI)

Presentation

The Discord UI presents like a web page, or HTML environment. This appears to serve the purpose of making sure users have a consistent experience, whether they choose to use the Discord program or run Discord from a web browser. For this reason, you’ll want to make sure you’re familiar with your screen reader’s commands for using web pages, particularly those commands for navigating and interacting with links, buttons, headings, landmarks, edit fields, checkboxes, and dropdown menus. You will also need to be familiar with navigating in-page dialog boxes, especially if you are using the Nonvisual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader. (note: as of December 5, 2019, the need to rely on navigating in-page dialog boxes to use Discord has decreased almost to the point of being nonexistent. See the later sections of this post to find out exactly what has changed.)

If you are using JAWS, there are also scripts for Discord. These scripts add functionality to the screen reader to enhance the user experience.

When You First Launch

When you first launch Discord, you land in the “Home” section. This section contains a list of servers to which you belong, as well as your direct messages–conversations between you and at least one other person, and  not broadcast to a server. You’re friends list is also here, and you can filter it by who’s online, pending friend requests, etc.

A Difference Between JAWS and NVDA

Until December 5, 2019, NVDA users had to successfully navigate an in-page dialog by telling NVDA to interact with it. This issue has been fixed by the Discord developers, and has taken care of the most significant difference between using JAWS or NVDA with Discord. For the truly curious minds, the dialog where you spend most of your Discord time is still taking up the center of the web page, it’s just that now NVDA is able to recognize that it should automatically interact with that dialog. you can confirm this by pressing NVDA+CTRL+Space at any time and experiencing the results.

Servers 

Servers are presented as a type of dropdown that screen readers call a treeview. To negotiate the servers treeview:

  •  From the top of the virtual window, press the down arrow until you hear “servers treeview”.
  •  Press enter to interact with the treeview. You should hear an indication from your screen reader to indicate the exit from virtual browse mode.
  •  Use the up and down arrows to navigate through the list.
  •  When you find the server you want, press Enter.

Alternatively, press the tab key to enter the servers treeview, then use the up and down arrows to find the server you want then press Enter.

 

Private Channels

This is how Discord categorizes direct messages. You can reach this area by using the down arrow to move passed the servers treeview. You’ll encounter buttons for adding a new server and server discovery along the way. If you wish to reduce the number of keystrokes, press Tab to enter the servers treeview, then press F6 to jump to the direct messages list. You can also navigate by landmark until you hear, “Private Channels” and press tab to enter the treeview. This area has the following elements:

  •  Friends
  •  Nitro
  •  Direct messages with the name of the user with whom you are holding the conversation.

You can navigate to any of these by pressing Enter when you hear its name. If you press Enter on the friends or Nitro elements, the section you choose is opened as a level three heading below the list of direct messages. If your viewing the friends list, it is sorted by who is online, pending friend requests, anyone you’ve blocked, and all these filtering options are presented as tabs, and your selection appears under a level two heading of the same name. This section also has buttons for adding a friend, starting a group direct message, mentions, the Discord help, your inbox, and an update button if you are not running the latest discord. The headings for your friends list are actually situated below the user settings, so you’ll want to use your screen reader’s heading jump to bypass the user area.

Inbox

The inbox is a feature that allows you to see mentions and unread messages for your servers. you can access it by finding and activating the inbox button, or by pressing Control+i from anywhere within Discord. the inbox has tabs you can use to see mentions or unread messages, as well as a button that marks everything in the Inbox as read if you feel overwhelmed and want to start with a clean slate.

User Area

The user area contains buttons for setting your status, copying your user name, muting yourself, deafening yourself, and accessing your user settings. The quickest way to access this portion of the interface is to move by landmark until you hear, “User area”. All of these options will be covered in future posts, starting with user settings later in this post. Now that you have an overview of the user interface, let’s talk about user settings.

User Settings

To access user settings, move by landmark to reach the user area, and then navigate by button until you hear “user settings,” then press space or enter. You should be presented with these options, which present as tabs.

  • My Account: Contains options to customize your profile, manage your contact info and password, and manage two-factor authentication.
  • Privacy & Safety: Contains options for who can find and contact you, data control, etc.
  • Authorized Apps: Contains options for managing apps with access to your Discord account.
  • Connections: Where you manage connections to your social media profiles.
  • Billing: where you manage how to give a corporation money.
  • Discord Nitro: Where you can manage your premium subscription.
  • Server Boost: you can pay a fee to help your favorite servers get more notice.
  • Hype Squad: Where you can sign up for the Discord newsletter.
  • App settings: A magic button you can click all day with no result, since it’s meant to illustrate a new category and is misread by screen readers.
  • Voice & Video: Set your input and output preferences for chatting later.
  • Overlay: Controls settings for the chat overlay while playing games.
  • Notifications: Lets you customize what you’re notified about and how.
  • Keybinds: Lets you configure shortcut keys.
  • Game Activity: Lets you control options for displaying which game you’re currently playing.
  • Activity Feed: Lets you customize your activity feed.
  • Game library: Lets you import your game library from popular services like Steam. (This option is now only available to those who have purchased games through Discord).
  • Text & Images: Settings for adjusting how text and images are handled, and this is where you can adjust spoiler display settings.
  • Appearance: Change the visual look of the Discord UI.
  • Streamer mode: Customize your streaming experience.
  • Language: Set your language.
  • Windows settings: Lets you control if Discord launches at startup, whether or not it runs from the system tray, etc.
  • Change Log: View the list of recent changes.
  • Logout: Signs you out.

Once you click a category, use heading navigation to find the beginning of that category’s options. Use standard navigation to explore the possible options.

Suggested Changes

Here are some suggestions of settings you can change to make your user experience better. The out-of-box experience is quite nice, though.

Under My Account

You may wish to consider setting a profile photo. While I recognize that having an avatar may not be a priority for most of my readers, the fact is having a unique avatar is how server admins who may be visually oriented to the world distinguish you from a spammer. To set your avatar:

  • Once you’ve navigated to user settings, my account, and the level 2 heading where those options start, move by button until you hear “edit,” and activate it.
  • Navigate away from the edit box where you can change your username, and then
    • If you are using NVDA, push the up arrow until you hear “clickable” and press Space.
    • If you are using JAWS, route your JAWS cursor to your PC cursor. Next, push up arrow until you hear “Avatar,” and press space.
  • You will then be taken to a standard browse dialog where you can choose a photo.
  • Once you’ve finished, find and click the “Save” button.

Under Notifications

You can have it so that incoming messages are automatically spoken. At this time, it is only possible to adjust the rate of speech, and announcements may interfere with other tasks you are performing. For this reason, I suggest you be picky about what you want announced. To set up text to speech announcements:

  • Select the notifications category of options.
  • Navigate by level 5 heading until you hear “Text to speech notifications”.
  • Navigate by and check the checkbox for all channels, currently selected channel, or never.
  • Click the unlabeled save button at the bottom of the screen.

While you’re in the notifications section, you may also wish to review and customize notification sounds. Each event is both a checkbox and button, so moving to one and pressing the spacebar will both play the sound and toggle the notification on or off. When you’ve finished, click the unlabeled save button.

Next Steps

Now that you have an understanding of the Discord UI and an idea of how navigation is going to work, you’re ready to join a server. The next post will explain how to join servers, as well as customize your settings for a specific server. In the meantime, make sure you have discord set the way you think you’ll like it.

Changeling’s Guide to Discord for Screen Readers: Introduction

What is This?

This is the first in a series of posts that explains how to use Discord if you also use a screen reader to access your computer and the Internet. It is not intended to replace the documentation for either Discord or your screen reader, but rather to explain how you can use the two programs together to have an enjoyable user experience.

What is Covered in This Guide?

This guide will explain what Discord is, its main features, how to navigate servers and channels, how to participate in chat, and how to adjust settings. Depending on the reception while this guide is being written, as well as the number of requests for it, I may cover creating and managing a server.

What is the Intended Audience?

This guide is intended for people who want to use Discord and need a screen reader to effectively use their computer. Beyond that, it is intended for people who like user directions that contain more detail than just lists of shortcut keys. While this is a set of directions, it is styled to read like a conversation between you and me. When I published Changeling’s Guide to Mastodon for Screen Readers, the style of the guide seemed to be its best received feature.

What is Covered in the Rest of This Post?

The rest of this post answers the question of what Discord is, and ends with a walkthrough for creating an account. The final section will offer suggestions of things you can do to prepare for the next post in the series.

What is Discord

According to its website, Discord is a free, secure solution for people who want to chat and hang out. These chats are held in groups called servers, and these servers can be host to different categories called channels to help organize the conversation. The advantage here is that unlike a Skype or WhatsApp group where every message in the conversation gets sent to everyone in the group, a user can configure Discord so that they only receive notifications from certain channels, or on certain conversation topics, from a server. It is intended to keep people from feeling like they are in a sensory overload version of hell caused by too many notifications. Users can also live stream to servers, or voice chat in designated channels on servers. Like any service, the first step to using it is to create an account.

Creating an Account

Before You Begin

The first thing you’ll want to do is download the appropriate version of the Discord software for your operating system. This guide will focus primarily on the Windows version, but you can also download it for Mac, as well as iOS and Android. If you’re not using any of these, or if you want to test drive the service before installing software, you can use Discord from your preferred web browser.

To install Discord, go to discord.com on the device on which you will be using the service, and select the download link. The site will detect the appropriate version of your software based on your browser. Once you’ve done that perform the normal steps for installing software on your machine, and you’ll be ready to create an account.

If you want to run Discord from a browser, you’ll want to create an account first, and then select the “Open Discord in Your Browser” button.

To Create an Account

Go to discord.com/register, and provide your e-mail , your preferred user name, and a password then click continue. You’ll then be prompted to set up a server, but you can click “Skip” for now. The final step is verifying your email address, which involves clicking a link in an email sent by the Discord service.

A Quick Word About Usernames

When you sign up for a service, the process usually goes something like type your name into the box, see your name is being used by someone else, then choose a username that has your name with a long string of numbers after it. With Discord, each user is designated a tag, or the hashtag (#) followed by a four (4) digit code that accompanies your user name, so you can always have your desired username in chats. For example, my Discord info is Changeling#0001.

Next Steps

This post explained what Discord is and guided you through the registration process. If you haven’t yet done so, you’ll want to install the Discord program. You might also consider making a list of your interests to help you find appropriate servers for you to join. The next posts will discuss the layout of the program’s interface, how to adjust user settings, as well as finding and joining servers.

What is This?

This is the fifth in a series of posts that explains how to use Mastodon if you are a screen reader user. It is an alternative form of documentation, and is not intended to relace the original Mastodon documentation, nor should it be used to replace the documentation that comes with your screen reading software. My suggestion is that you use this information in combination with the original documentation to further your understanding. I also suggest that, due to the advanced content in this portion of the guide, you go back and start the series with Chapter One.

The Road So Far…

  • Chapter One gave an introduction to the guide, explained my reasons for writing it, and outlined things you should have to make your experience a smooth one.
  • Chapter Two explained what Mastodon was, described the process of choosing an instance, and concluded with a brief walkthrough of the signup process.
  • Chapter three guided you through the process of completing your user profile, concluding with the sneding of your first toot, “Hello World.”
  • Chapter Four described the different things you can do with toots, as well as the process of searching for and following users.

What is in This Chapter?

This chapter explains how to navigate timelines and interact with toots from other users. We’ll start by discussing the different timelines Mastodon offers, as well as how to switch between them. we’ll then talk about how to navigate timelines, and how to interact with toots from other users.

Terms in This Chapter (In Order of discussion)

  • Timeline
    • Home Timeline
    • Local Timeline
    • Federated Timeline
    • Notifications Timeline
    • Direct messages timeline
  • Boost
  • Favorite
  • Reply

Before We Begin

This guide was written using the ChromeVox screen reader on Chrome OS. If you’re using a different browser and/or screen reader, your experience may vary. If you are using a mobile device, the keyboard shortcuts may not work. I know for a fact that they do not work with iOS and Safari at the time of this writing. If you will be using a mobile device for Mastodon, stay tuned for Chapter Six, which has a section dedicated to mobile solutions.

How to Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Unless otherwise noted, you’ll make yourself ready and able to use keyboard shortcuts by letting your screen reader know to pass keystrokes to Mastodon. Here are some of the most common commands, but you should consult your screen reader’s documentation. To keep this discussion as general as possible and keep me from repeating long sentences, we’re just going to call this passthrough, and I may proceed a set of directions with something like, “Enable passthrough,” or “Disable Passthrough.”

  • JAWS calls this virtual keys, and you toggle it with JAWS+Z.
  • NBDA calls this Browse mode, and you toggle it with NVDA+Space.
  • For VoiceOver on Apple devices, make sure quick-nav is off. You can toggle this by pressing the left and right arrows together.
  • Chromevox has a limited version of passthrough, and it won’t come into play here. For the record, that command is ChromeVox+Shift+Escape.

Timelines

A timeline is where toots appear. The kind of toot that appears and who those toots are from depends on the timeline you’re viewing. In the notifications timeline, the messages you see are not necessarily toots, but you will navigate them in the same way. They are displayed newest to oldest.

  • Home timeline: Toots from you and people you follow. Includes boosts and replies by default.
  • Notifications Timeline: Shows new followers, boosts of your toots, favorites of your toots, replies to your toots. Includes an option to only show replies/mentions.
  • Local Timeline: Includes toots from users of your instance, regardless of whether or not you follow them.
  • Federated Timeline: Includes toots from users from instances with which your instance interacts, regardless of whether or not you follow them.

By default, your home and notifications timelines are displayed on your home page, the page you land on after logging into your instance. With passthrough disabled, you can jump between these by using the command to navigate by heading. These two timelines are considered to be pinned, and pinning is covered in more detail in Chapter Six.

You can also navigate to the local and federated timelines by activating the links at the top of the page. You can also switch timelines by using the following hotkeys with passthrough enabled. All of these start by pressing the letter g, followed by:

  • H for home.
  • N for notifications
  • L for local timeline.
  • T for federated timeline.
  • S for “Get Started”.
  •  D for Direct Messages.

 

Regardless of whether you click the links or use the hotkeys, Mastodon will not load another page like you may be used to from using other websites. Instead, it expands a new section, and that section is under a level one heading, the title of which depends on which section you called up. Home and notifications are always visible. If you don’t call up one of the other timelines, and if you navigate to the heading beyond the notifications section, you’ll encounter the getting started section. This includes links to various account settings (detailed in chapter six), as well as the complete list of hotkeys and profile directory (See Chapter Three). You can also call up the list of hotkeys by pressing ? with passthrough enabled. Press the Backspace key to go back when you’ve finished with a section.

 

Navigating Within Timelines Described

This is a general description of how to navigate through timelines. This means that once you apply these methods, you should be able to navigate all timelines. If you need more detail, the next major section(you can jump to it by using the command by jumoing by level two heading), details the navigation of the most common timelines you use on Mastodon.

Generally

To enter a timeline once it’s been called up or made visible, disable passthrough, and move by heading until you hear the name of the desired timeline. Pressing Tab the first time will move you to a “Settings” button, and clicking that will show or hide the settings pecific to that timeline. Later, we’ll take a look at the settings for Home, Notifications and Direct Messages. Pressing Tab again takes you to the toot at the top of the timeline, and pressing Tab a third time takes you to the list proper.

In the List

Enable passthrough, and use j or down arrow to move to the next toot. Use k or up arrow to move to the previous toott. You can review a toot by character, word, etc. by using your screen reader’s commands for that level of analysis.

On a Toot

Once you navigate to a toot, you can press the Tab key to move between the link to the user’s profile, the text, the button to show or hide content behind warnings, the image with alt text if it is there, and the buttons for interacting.

Navigating Within Timelines Applied

This section repeats what has just been covered, except it adds more detail about what you can expect to find. The prompts you should always hear from your screen reader are in quotes. Whether or not you hear the descriptions of controls as you pass over them will depend on how you have your verbosity settings configured. Similarly, whether you hear the name of the section and actually need to Tab to find the settings button, or if you hear the title of the section and the settings button when you navigate to that heading will depend on how your screen reader handles object presentation.

Home

Navigate by heading until you hear “home. Heading level one”. Press Tab, and you get:

  1. “Home. Show settings. Not pressed.”
    1. Activating this button will change the message to “Hide Settings. Pressed.”
    2. When these settings are shown you have checkboxes for what you do and don’t want shown in the timeline. Choose to see or not see boosts and replies by checking or unchecking these boxes.
  2. The first toot in the timeline. The latest.
  3. The first toot again. The start of the list proper. The toot is read in full.
    1. Author name.
    2. Message or content warning.
    3. If the toot was boosted, who boosted it.
    4. When the toot was tooted.
  4. Each of the elements above, plus:
    1. Photo and alt text if present.
    2. Buttons for interacting.
  5. Continuing to press Tab will take you to the next toot.

Enabling passthrough and pressing j, k, down arrow, or up arrow will take you to the next and previous toot, and the process repeats.

Notifications

Disable passthrough, and navigate by heading until you hear, “Notifications. Heading level one.” Press tab and you get:

  1. “Show settings. Not pressed.”
    1. Pressing this button changes the message to “Hide settings. Pressed.”
    2. You can choose which notifications you receive through either push or desktop. Eliminate entire categories, or only certain notifications for certain types of activity by checking or unchecking the boxes.
  2. “All.” Activating this shows all notifications.
  3. “Mentions.” Activating this only displays mentions.
  4. Message structure with elements as described above.
  5. Enable passthrough and use j, k, up, or down arrow to move through the list.

Direct Messages

Direct messages are toots that only you or a group of users that includes you can see. To navigate here, enable passthrough, then press g, d. Disable passthrough, and navigate by heading until you hear Direct Messages. Heading level one.” Press Tab, and you get:

  1. “Show settings. Not pressed.”
    1. Activating this button will change the message to, “Hide settings. Pressed.”
    2. The only option in this timeline is the option to pin it. This means it will always be visibile.
  2. The first message.
  3. By now, you should have enough to know what to expect.

I just want to point out to you that since direct message do qualify as mentions according to Mastodon, they will show up in your notifications timeline. It’s important to know how to call up different timelines, however, so you can work with lists, which will be covered in Chapter Six.

Take a Break: A Quick Look Behind the Scenes

This is the part where you need to stop and take a break. How do I know? Before I wrote this paragraph, I went back and read what I’d written before and cleaned it up. I’m exhausted, and this content is not new to me. I should also note that, with the exception of the first two chapters, each one of these takes me a couple of days to draft, plus a few extra hours to be ready for publishing. This is because I want to make reading these chapters and applying these concepts as seamless as possible for you, so I put a lot of my effort into making sure my reference points match.

I’m also putting more detail than some screen reader users may need, because there are a lot of people keeping up with this project and showing their support who aren’t screen reader users. They boost, they favorite, they share, they point out mistakes I’ve missed and help me reach my goals for this guide. In Chapter Seven, most likely the final chapter, I’ll have a section dedicated to thanking the contributors. Until then, thank you all.

Now that we’ve had a break, it’s time to talk about interacting with other users. Without that, none of the support I’m grateful to have received would have been possible.

Interacting with Toots

This section is going to be broken into three parts. First, we’ll deal with things you can do that won’t take your focus out of the timeline. We’ll then look at replying, which does take your focus away from the timeline. Finally, we’ll look at actions that open up additional sections and rely on navigation to complete. I’m writing this under the assumption that you went and found people to follow. For this section, passthrough will need to be enabled unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Boosting and Favoriting, and reading Image Descriptions

Neither boosting nor favoriting will take your focus away from the timelin in which you are currently operating. We’ll be working from the home timeline, but you can use these wherever you like, except Direct messages.

Boosting

Boosting a toot means you’ve shared it (Facebook), or retweeted it (Twitter). It basically means that helping a person’s message get heard. It’s also like if one person sings a song, and then you join in, and so on. To boost a toot:

  1. Navigate the timeline until you find a toot to boost.
  2. Do one of the following:
    1. Press Tab until you hear, “Boost. Not pressed” and activate it. The message should change to, “Boost. Pressed.”
    2. Press B to boost. Depending on your screen reader, you may not receive confirmation. You can Tab to the button for boosting, and you should hear, “Boost. Pressed.”
  3. Your followers will now see the toot from the original author, and that you boosted it.
  4. If the author of the toot has elected to receive such notifications, they will receive a notification that you’ve boosted their toot.

Favoriting

Favoriting is similar to using the like feature on other social media platforms. It also saves the toot to a separate timeline, and we’ll be exploring that in Chapter Six. To favorite:

  1. Navigate the timeline until you find a toot you like. Then, do one of the following:
    1. Tab until you hear, “Favorite. Not pressed.” and activate it. You should hear, “Favorite. Pressed.”
    2. Press F to favorite. Depending on your screen reader, you may or may not receive confirmation. Tab until you hear “Favorite. Pressed.” to confirm.
  2. If the author has chosen to receive this notification, they will be notified that you have favorited their toot.
  3. Your followers will not see this activity. This is why, if you toot something someone really likes, you’ll often receive a boost and favorite notification.

 

It’s important to know that boosts and favorites can be toggled, so it’s not a huge deal if you make a mistake.

Finding Image Descriptions (alt text)

If a person has added an image description (alt text) to an image they’ve uploaded, you can Tab until you encounter the image with description, and your screen reader should read it. If the author is using an instance where an uploaded image is not presented you may need to use your arrows, rather than Tab to find the image.

Replying

A reply is a toot posted in response to another toot. Doing this results in both messages being recognized as a thread that can be viewed later. To reply:

  1. Find a toot to which you wish to respond.
  2. Do one of the following;
    1. Tab until you hear, “Reply.” and activate it.
      1. You will be focused on the compose toot text box, and your screen reader should be ready to type.
      2. The box will have an at (@) sign, followed by the person’s username and instance, like @ChangelingRandy.
      3. Type your response, then do either one of the following:
        1. Tab until you hear “Toot” and activate it.
        2. Press CTRL+Enter to send your message.
      4. Your focus will remain in the text box, Disable passthrough, and use heading navigation to return to the timeline where you found the toot.
    2. Press R for reply.
      1. Your focus will be moved to the compose new toot text box, and your screen reader should be ready to type.
      2. The box has in it the at (@) sign, followed by the person’s username and instance, like @ChangelingRandy.
      3. Type your response, then press CTRL+Enter to send.
      4. Disable passthrough, and use heading naviagation to return to the timeline.
  3. At this point, there is no way to quickly return to the toot you replied to (your spot in the timeline) using a screen reader.

Other Actions

By now, you should have an understanding of the process of interacting. I’m not going to detail each of these actions, except to say that most of them will open up additional sections on the page, which you will then to navigate to. Some, but not all, of these will be detailed in Chapter Six.

  • Press M to mention the author is similar to a reply, but does not result in a conversation thread.
  • Press P to open the author’s profile in a new section.
  • Press Enter or O to open the status in a new section. If there is a conversation, it will be displayed.
  • Press X to show the content behind a content warining. Your screen reader may or may not automatically read the content. If not, anvigate away from then back to the toot.

Additional Actions

Each toot has a “More” button you can Tab to and activate. Here are the options in that menu.

  • Expand to status.
  • Copy link to status.
  • Imbed. Produces code you can put in a blog post to display a toot.
  • Mention.
  • Direct message.
  • Mute.
  • Block.
  • Report.
  •  Delete if the toot is yours.
  •  Delete and edit if the toot is yours.

Thank You for Reading

At this point, you have all the essentials for using Mastodon. Many of you will choose to stop reading at this point. If this is you, thank you for reading Changeling’s Guide to Mastodon for Screen Reader users. Remember to check back here for updated content as the software updates.

Coming Up

In Chapter Six (to be published), we’ll be taking a look at some tools to make your experience smoother, as well as mobile apps for Mastodon. That discussion will operate under the assumption that you have an understanding of the concepts already covered by this guide, so you may wish to go back and review.

What is This?

This is the fourth in a series that explains how to use Mastodon if you are a screen reader user. It is an alternative form of documentation to the existing Mastodon documentation. It is not intended to replace the documentation for Mastodon or your screen reader. The content in this chapter is fairly advanced, so you should go back and read the first three chapters before reading this one.

The Road so Far…

  • Chapter one gave an introduction to the series and explained the structure of the series.
  • Chapter Two explained what Mastodon was, what an instance was, and how to join an instance.
  • Chapter Three guided you through the process of creating your profile, and concluded with your first post, “Hello world.”

What is Covered in This chapter?

This chapter gives details about working with all of the elements in the post box. Each element will have an explanation of what it does, as well as steps for using it with your screen reader.

Terms in This Chapter (in order of discussion)

  • Toot
  • Emoji.
  • Media.
  • Alt text.
  • Pole.
  • Status privacy.
  • Content warning.
  • Follow.
  • Remote follow.

More on Posts

The last chapter concluded with your first post, “hello World.” At the time, I listed for you the elements in the compose box, but wanted you to ignore them, the ultimate goal being to do a basic toot. It’s now time to take a look at all the things you can do with toots. If you haven’t already done so, log into your instance, and navigate to the compose box with your screen readers jump command for edit boxes, or with the shortcut key Alt+N. Make sure you tell your screen reader to ignore jump commands for the next few sections. Move to each element with the Tab and Shift+Tab commands.

Emoji

Many operating systems give users access to emoji by default. If you can’t find the emoji you want, you can insert one through Mastodon by doing the following.

  1. Tab until you hear “Insert emoji”.
  2. Press enter to expand the dropdown. Your focus will be moved to the searchbox.
  3. If you’re looking for something specific, type it into the searchbox. Use your up and down arrows to navigate results, and press enter on the one you want. You may need to let your screen reader know to go beyond the searchbox.
  4. If you want to just browse, skip the searchbox and use your arrows to browse. Press Enter when you find something you like.
  5. Once you choose an emoji, you should return to compose box. If not, navigate there. Turn off jump commands.

Media

You can add several types of media to your toot. This includes audio, video and pictures. You can upload one video or four pictures. To insert media:

  1. Tab until you hear, “Insert media,” followed by a list of filetypes Mastodon accepts.
  2. Press Enter. You will be taken to a browse dialog to select files for upload.
  3. Select your file, and press enter to insert it.
  4. If you uploaded a picture or pictures:
    1. You have the ability to add alt text, a description of the photo for screen reader users.
    2. Tab until you get to the edit box labeled “Alt Text”.
    3. Type your description into the field, then navigate back to the main compose box.

Pole

You can add a pole to toots, meaning you can ask users a question, and have them vote. To add a pole:

  1. From the compose box, type your question. For example, Do you think dragons exist?
  2. Tab until you hear “Add a pole”, and press Enter.
  3. Your focus will land on “Remove Pole”. You get two choices that appear as edit boxes by default. Shift+Tab twice to get to the first choice.
  4. Add your choices. For example, yes, no, maybe. If you need more than two choices, use the “Add Choice” button.
  5. Tab to the duration dropdown for the pole. The default is one day. Activate the dropdown to change this.

Status Privacy

You can adjust the status privacy of your toots. There are four options. To adjust privacy:

  1. From the compose box, Tab until you hear “Adjust Status Privacy”, and press Enter.
  2. Use your up and down arrows to move through options:
    1. Public: Posts to public timelines. More on timelines in Chapter Five.
    2. Unlisted: Does not post to public timelines, just the home timeline for your instance.
    3. Followers Only: Only your followers will see your toot.
    4. Direct: Only lets mentioned users see your toot. More on mentioning users in Chapter Five.
  3. Press enter to make your choice.

Content Warnings

Content warnings are one of the most popular features of Mastodon. How you use them will depend on what your instance’s code of conduct says needs a CW, what you personally feel needs a CW, and how you understand the concept of its function. A content warning is text that goes over the content of your toot, and hides it from people who may not wish to see this type of content.

It was intended to give users the choice of whether or not they wish to see content others may find offensive. You can also use it like a subject line in an email, an appropriate comparison, since Mastodon usernames look like email addresses. Here are some popular content warnings:

  • Sexual content, nudity, etc.
  • Mental health.
  • Food.
  • Gross.
  • Body image, body harm, body horror, etc.
  • Gender, gender dysphoria, gender identity, etc.
  • Mentions self-harm, thoughts of self-harm, etc.

To insert a content warning:

  1. From the compose box, Tab until you hear, “Text is not hidden”, and press Enter.
  2. Your focus will land on the edit box where you can type your warning.
  3. Type your warning, then tab to the main compose box.

Once You’ve Tricked Out Your Toot

Once your toot has all the features it needs added on, press CTRL+Enter to send. Alternatively, Tab until you hear “Toot”, and press Enter.

Following other Users

Now that you understand how to get your content out to the Fedeverse, it’s time to find other people to follow. This means that their content displays in your timeline, and you can interact with it. We’ll be talking about timelines and interacting in Chapter Five, but here are the things you can do:

  • Reply to a toot.
  • Boost a toot.
  • Favorite a toot.
  • View a user’s profile.

There are things you can do to interact with users, too, but we’ll save that for the next chapter.

 

How to Follow

There are many ways to follow a user, but most of them rely on your ability to interact with timelines. Since we haven’t discussed how to do that just yet, we’ll be using the searchbox on the home page of your instance that appears after you log in. Once Chapter Five comes out, you should consider reading Chapters Three, Four, and Five together to get a better understanding of how all of these things work together.

Using the Searchbox

There are two ways to move focus to the searchbox. The first one is to use your screen reader’s jump command to get to the searchbox, and then turn off jump commands to let you type in it. The second is to turn jump commands off, then press S to bring focus to the searchbox. Once you’re there type in your terms, then Tab to “Search” and press Enter.

Search results

Results are grouped by people, toots, and hashtags, and each section is indicated  using a level five heading. Once you get to the desired section, use standard navigation to see what your search turned up.

Following SomeOne Using the Searchbox

Here are the steps for following people using the searchbox.

  1. Navigate to the searchbox.
  2. Type your search terms, and activate the search button.
  3. Navigate to the “People” section.
  4. Next to the person’s display name and username, find and click the “Follow” button.

Following Me Using the Searchbox

  1. Navigate to the searchbox.
  2. Type ChangelingRandy into the box, and activate the “search” button.
  3. Navigate to the “People” section.
  4. Click the “Follow” button next to my display name and username. The display name is Changeling Mx, and the full username is ChangelingRandy@mastodon.social.

Remote Following

Remote following is following Mastodon user that is not on your instance. The only thing that is different is the following process. Otherwise, your interactions are exactly the same. The exception is if your instance’s admin decides to block that person’s instance, or vice versa.

Remote following works like this. I live in one house, my Mastodon instance. Ashley lives in another house, her Mastodon instance. We aren’t part of the same house, but we are part of the same community. We can interact with each other from our own houses. The exception to this is if one of the landlords decides that people from the other house aren’t their kind of people and banishes them.

How to Remote Follow

Let’s assume you’ve done the search and found someone on another instance. Now:

  1. Click the “Follow” button. Depending on the version of Mastodon your instance runs, you may need to do nothing else.
  2. If this is not the case, you will be taken to another page where you can remote follow.
  3. On that page find the edit box that asks your username and instance that you want to follow from. Write it like ChangelingRandy@mastodon.social.
  4. Tab to and activate the “Follow” button.

Coming Up

In Chapter five, we’ll be talking about how to use timelines and interact with posts. In the meantime, go follow some people so your timelines have content.