What's the state of #matrix, #xmpp and #IRC as far as #screenReader -accessible clients are concerned? Desktop (Windows, Mac) and mobile (iOS, Android).
Hoping for some input, please feel free to boost. As far as I know:
Matrix does not have a lightweight, fully accessible client for desktop, but one could be modified, such as #gomuks. On mobile, Element has scrolling issues, which is unacceptable for large rooms.
XMPP has accessible desktop clients (I used to run #Adium on the Mac), also #WeeChat. No idea about mobile.
IRC is perhaps the one which everything supports on desktop, from #MirandaIM through Weechat to the old Freedom Chat, which I could probably rewrite if I had to. Also not sure about mobile, but it would definitely need push notifications, because we can't expect people to stay constantly online on the go. #a11y #accessibility
@erion IRC is problematic on mobile unless you use something like IRCCloud to stay connected and get push notifications.
@jcsteh Thanks. Yep, that was also an issue a few years ago. so it seems there's no change.
@erion @jcsteh Actually there has been quite a bit of progress, Goguma (mobile IRC client) is probably the best representation of this.
https://codeberg.org/emersion/goguma/src/branch/master/doc/notifications.md
You'd need a modern IRC server that has direct support for webpush. I believe Ergo is the only option at the moment.
Failing that the IRCv3 chathistory feature is the next best thing but this requires periodic poling.
And for older servers you'd have to use a bouncer. Soju is a good option for that since it supports webpush.
@erion Basic Android TalkBack seems to work but I can't judge how it is in practice. The app is developed using Flutter so I imagine it works about as well as other Flutter apps do. I also see a couple of places in the code that seems to tweak various labels for screenreaders.
The author @emersion would be able to confirm.
