[Clients] Gemini and accessibility regarding preformatted code blocks

[Devin Prater]

Okay, these are a bit more chatty, speaking:


"full block full block full block full block full block full block em
quad full block full block em quad ..."


You get the idea. Yes, headings are useful, and I'm so glad Gemini
provides just enough structure to be helpful and useful, but not enough
to be annoying.

On 2/25/21 4:41 PM, Vasco Costa wrote:
> Hello Davin, welcome to Gemini and to this mailing list!
>
> Thank you for your insight from the perspective of a screen reader user.
> As a future developer of a Gemini client I'll take your word into
> account when dealing with preformatted blocks of text and as a content
> creator I'll now consider whether to use alt text at the beginning of
> preformatted banners or to stop using them altogether.
>
> I only use one at the top of my Gemini capsule and gopher hole, with a
> large version of the title of my sites. At least on Gemini maybe it
> makes more sense to use simply a first level header, which is already
> rendered as bigger text on graphical browsers anyway.
>
> I have a question for you. I don't use ASCII art on my banner, instead I
> use ANSI art. Basically I draw the title of my capsule with ANSI block
> characters, instead of alphanumeric characters. How do screen readers
> typically handle this? Is it less or more problematic than ASCII? I
> wonder if screen readers skip it or repeat something like "block" for
> every character, which would obviously be extremely annoying. In case
> you need a capsule to test this, my Gemini capsule starts with an ANSI
> banner:
>
> gemini://gluonspace.com/
>
> I believe that most of us enjoy Gemini for a common reason, which is the
> fact that it serves content instead of format. At the end of the day,
> that's what really matters, no matter whether we use screen readers or
> not.
>
> --
> Vasco Costa
>
> AKA gluon. Enthusiastic about computers, motorsports, science,
> technology, travelling and TV series. Yes I'm a bit of a geek.
>
> Gemini: gemini://gluonspace.com/
> Gopher: gopher://gopher.geeksphere.tk/