Screen Readers

The web portal works with screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and TalkBack. What other players say is read out as it arrives, every control has a name, and the keyboard reaches everything. This page covers the portal, what a MU* client gets, and how game builders can help.

Browsers do not tell a web page that a screen reader is running, so the portal asks you once.

Open Play.
Open Terminal settings, the button above the terminal on the right.
Tick Screen reader mode.

The choice is kept in this browser, for every character you play in it, guests included. It does these things:

The exit letter keys are turned off. Normally pressing a letter such as n while focus is on a button takes that exit. With a screen reader, letters are how you move around the page, so a stray one could walk your character out of the room. With the mode on, only the exit buttons and the command box move you.
Your own commands are not read back. You just typed them, so only what the game sends is read.
Recent lines can be heard again with Alt and a number, while you stay in the command box. See Hearing a line again.
Lines are read as words, not drawings. A picture is read as its description, a scene’s divider as its title (for example “God posed”), and a line of dashes or box characters is skipped. A box of fields is read one field at a time, for example “Mannaz Byron. Sex: Male. Species: Human.”
The game is told. Games can use this to describe something in words instead of drawing it with characters. See For game builders.

Getting around

The first two links on every page are Skip to main content and Skip to the text box. The second puts you straight in the box you type into.
Each page has one main heading, which focus moves to when the page changes. On Play it names the room, for example “Play: Room Zero”. The cards beside the terminal, such as Here and Exits, are headings too, so your screen reader’s heading keys jump between them.
The menus and the bottom bar on a phone are labelled landmarks.
On a phone, the tabs above the room sheet (Here, Exits and the rest) move with the arrow keys, and Home and End go to the first and last.

Reading the game

The terminal has two parts:

Game command is the box you type into. Enter sends what you typed.
Game output is everything the game sends you. New lines are read out as they arrive, without moving your focus, so you can keep typing while someone talks. To go back over earlier lines, Tab to Game output and read it with your screen reader’s reading keys, or scroll it with the arrow keys.

Hearing a line again

With Screen reader mode on, hold Alt and press a number in the command box to hear a recent line again. Alt+1 reads the newest line, Alt+2 the one before it, and so on up to Alt+0 for the tenth. Your own commands are not counted. What you have typed stays in the box. On a Mac, use Option.

To go further back, use Game output as described above.

When you open a channel or a conversation from the sidebar, each new line is read with who said it, for example “Kestrel: anyone at the docks?”. When you close it, focus goes back to the command box, so you are never left at the top of the page.

The Story view of a scene works the same way: each new pose is read as it lands. A deleted pose starts with “Deleted:”.

If a button you were on disappears, for example the exit you just took, focus goes back to the command box too.

In a MU* client

A MU* client can tell the game it is a screen reader through MTTS, the standard way clients describe themselves. Look in your client’s accessibility settings for an option to tell the game you use a screen reader.

If your client has no such option, tell the game yourself. Type this at the login screen, or after you log in:

SCREENREADER

The game answers Screen reader set to 'on'. The setting lasts until you disconnect, so add SCREENREADER to the commands your client sends when it connects. SCREENREADER off turns it off, even if your client said it is a screen reader, and SCREENREADER auto goes back to what your client said.

When the game knows, it sends that connection:

no colour codes, which some screen readers read aloud
no clickable links, unless you turn them back on with SOCKSET commandlinks=on
the description of a picture instead of the picture
the boxes and tables in reading order, one item after another, instead of side by side

For game builders

The function terminfo() lists what a connection can do. With Screen reader mode on in the portal, it looks like this:

think terminfo(me)

Output: SHARPMUSH-PORTAL screenreader websocket commandlinks truecolor

The word screenreader is the part to check. Anyone’s softcode can see it, as it can see pueblo, so a room description or a connect screen can use it.

A map drawn with characters reads aloud as a run of punctuation. This room shows the drawing to most players and a sentence to a screen reader:

&MAP here=%b%b%b%b%bPier%r%b%b%b%b%b%b|%rGate --- You
&MAP`SAID here=The pier is north of you. The gate is west.
@desc here=A cobbled square by the water.%r[if(member(terminfo(%#),screenreader),v(MAP`SAID),u(MAP))]

Someone without a screen reader who types look sees:

A cobbled square by the water.
     Pier
      |
Gate --- You

With Screen reader mode on, they hear:

A cobbled square by the water.
The pier is north of you. The gate is west.

You often do not need terminfo() at all:

Pictures: figure() takes a description, and every screen reader gets the description. The connect screen in the Messages package draws its logo this way.
Layouts: box(), fields(), datatable() and the other layout functions are read in order, as a table or a list, in the portal and in a MU* client.
Command links: cmdlink() makes a real button in the portal, which a screen reader can reach and press.