X is a micro-blogging service which can be used to exchange quick frequent messages. Particularly in recent months at the time of writing, X has undergone many changes to the extent that there are now two levels of X access available. The standard usage is a free X account allowing you to compose messages of up to 280 characters in length. The second is X Premium allowing messages of up to 25 thousand characters and other features for subscribers.
For many years, a small number of specially developed applications were available to screen-reader users which made the management of X posts quick and easy. However, again due to recent changes, the majority of such X clients are no longer permitted to access the service. As far as access to X using the Windows operating system is concerned, it is therefore necessary to use either the X app from the Microsoft App Store or the web site at X.com. The access you will receive is exactly the same.
While many people would say that X itself provides a number of accessibility enhancements to allow people to use either of these methods of access, the reality is that it is not the most optimum experience. The output from the screen-reader is very verbose, since it delivers a great deal of information potentially you would not wish to hear. When using some versions of JAWS, it requires that the JAWS Virtual Cursor is disabled in order that the special shortcut keys can be used. Those shortcut keys are not particularly easy to remember. There are a number of other reasons. To this end, the X scripts provide some support so you can still access X fairly efficiently using any one of the above mentioned methods of access. The level of access is not going to be of the same high quality and efficiency as previously provided by the older specialist clients. That access is a thing of the past. But it is our hope that the assistance given here will at the very least allow you to keep up-to-date, especially with mainstream organisations who are present there. X is a thriving community of people with millions of users and it is important that you are not locked out of having quality access to it.
It is the view of Hartgen Consultancy that at the time of writing, you would not wish to use X for everyday conversation and interaction, despite the support which has been put in place here. If you are using a screen-reader with Windows, the days of doing that efficiently are gone. The purpose of what follows is to allow you to keep abreast of X activity which may be essential.
What follows is a brief summary of how you might accomplish tasks you may typically wish to work through on X. It is by no means exhaustive and improvements to this access will, if possible, be made over time.
It is also worth mentioning that this is not a tutorial on using X. It does not attempt to explain X terms. The below documentation sections summarise specifically how the X scripts can assist you in working with X and nothing more.
When X is launched, at least for the first time, you will want to press Insert+Q (or Caps Lock+Q if you are using the JAWS Laptop Layout). If JAWS announces that the scripts for X are loaded, you can proceed.
As previously indicated, in order for you to gain a meaningful experience with X, the JAWS Virtual Cursor needs to be disabled. In terms of The JAWS scripts for X, this occurs by default. As soon as you launch X from the web site or via the official app, the Virtual Cursor is switched off and, to a large extent, you can navigate X as if it was a standard application. However, there may be times when you wish to enable it, particularly when customising settings as an example. You can do this at any time by pressing Insert+Z (or Caps Lock+Z if you are using the JAWS laptop layout). This is a toggle action and will enable and disable the feature. Once enabled, X can be accessed in the same way as you would read (and interact with) a regular web page.
From this point forward, when X is accessed, you will probably be on your Home timeline where you will see posts from the people and organisations you follow. Press Up or Down Arrow keys to move through the posts. You will probably hear the author name, the X username, the time the post was sent, the post itself and, if appropriate, statistical information such as the number of likes.
You may find that you wish to abbreviate some of this information. To do this, activate Abbreviated Mode. This can be toggled on and off with ALT+Windows+A. Once enabled, this setting will remain in effect until you disable it. Enabling Abbreviated Mode has the effect of reducing the output so you hear all the details with the exception of the X username and the time, so it makes navigation a lot less of a chore.
Should you wish to hear all of this information, you can use the JAWS command to read the current line, Insert+Up Arrow (or Caps Lock+Up Arrow if you are using the JAWS laptop layout). Pressing this keystroke twice quickly will allow you to read all of the information in the JAWS Virtual Viewer for closer examination, perhaps word by word. Press Escape to close.
There are two ways in which posts can be displayed: using the "For You" Tab or the "Following" Tab. The "For You" Tab is the default. The advantage of the "For You" Tab is that you can meet different people who share your own interests. The more posts you reply to or like influences the X algorithm and will display items which may match your interests. Using older Twitter clients designed for visually impaired people, users were forced to only receive posts from those people being followed. This meant that an important element of social media was lost.
To change to the "Following" Tab, activate the Virtual Cursor with the JAWS Key+Z. Then, from the top of the page, arrow down until you reach the Tabs. You will find "For You" and "Following". JAWS does announce which Tab is selected. Press the Space Bar on the appropriate Tab.
You will notice that your most recently received posts are at the top of the list. In the majority of cases, as you enter the X platform, the top of the list is the focus. This means that you are reading your posts in reverse time order which is not the best experience and there is no way of changing it. We cannot think of anyone who, for example, would want to start by reading the concluding part of a news story coverage and to work backwards.
Every effort has been made to ensure that, as you move through a timeline, focus does not move away from the list of posts. Should this happen, press the Tab key once, then try moving through the posts again with the down Arrow key.
There is also an added difficulty in that it does not seem possible to stop the timeline from refreshing which causes focus issues.
If you think you may have more recent posts available than those displayed, press full-stop or period to refresh the timeline.
Should you wish to access a link referenced as part of the post, press the Tab key repeatedly until JAWS announces the link. Then press Enter. The page referred to should open up as a new tab in your web browser. When you have finished reviewing the page, press Control+F4 so as to return to X.
Keystrokes you may wish to use at this point are:
One of the most valuable aspects of using X is being able to scan and interpret images which are frequently posted. This especially means that you can join in conversations from which you may otherwise have been excluded. This can be an essential aspect of social media participation. This can be achieved using JAWS 2024 and Picture Smart AI.
Find a post containing an image. JAWS will announce if an image is present. Then, press Control+Windows+I. The image is scanned and the text presented. You are then able to read it and, if necessary, obtain a more thorough explanation using two AI chat services and even ask further questions. For example, if a general description is given of an outfit someone is waring, you can ask for more description about it.
Press Escape to exit the description. In the event that focus is now not located on the post you were previously reading, press function key F12. The X scripts will try to locate this for you.
To compose a new post, press Control+N. Start typing your text into the Edit Field. If you wish to know how many characters have been typed, press Insert+T (or Caps Lock+T if you are using the JAWS laptop layout).
To send the message, press Enter or Control+Enter.
Should you wish to attach an image (such as a photo) to the post, press ALT+Windows+P. This takes you into a standard Windows "Browse" Dialog Box. Locate the image and press Enter. Fields are then available which you can move through by pressing Tab and Shift+Tab to allow you to tag the image with alternative text.
To reply to the focused post, press Control+R.
To resend a post without quoting, press Control+Shift+R.
To Resend a post with quoting, (adding a comment), press Control+Shift+Q.
There is a strong likelihood that an X post which is focused will be a reply to a previous message. This is known as being part of a conversation thread. To open up the post so as to view other elements of the conversation, press Enter. You ought then to be able to use the Up and Down Arrow keys to explore the other messages. To return to the timeline with which you were previously working, press the appropriate keystroke to go back. For example, if prior to pressing Enter you were viewing your Home timeline, press ALT+Windows+H. Focus should return to the appropriate timeline and also to your previous position in the timeline.
In the event you wish to view a profile of a user, when you hear the post details press Tab to reach the user name, then press Enter.
From this point, activate the Virtual Cursor with Insert+Z (or Caps Lock+Z if you are using the JAWS Laptop Keyboard layout). From here, you can use the Up and Down Arrow keys to review the bio, number of followers, etc. Don't forget to deactivate the Virtual Cursor with the same keystroke once again to return to normal operation.
If the post contains an embedded video, open it up by pressing Enter, then press Tab to reach the "Play Video" Button and press the Space Bar. You can press the Space Bar again to pause and resume playback. Depending upon your settings, the video may already be playing. If this is so, and you cannot hear it, press Space Bar on the Unmute button.
Another way of achieving the same thing is as follows. Do not open up the post. Instead, press Tab repeatedly until you reach the total time of the video. This is displayed in the format of minutes colon seconds, such as, 3:11. From this point, press the Home key and the video should start playing. Press the Space Bar to pause and resume.
If you have multiple X accounts, the chances are fairly high that you will wish to switch to a different one. To do this, press ALT+Windows+C. Then press the Tab key repeatedly to reach the account you wish to switch to. When the desired account is announced, press Enter.
Sending a direct message is one of the most difficult things you can do using the X's interface. This section of the documentation explains how you might go about it.
To search for an X account to follow, press Forward Slash. Type what you would like to search for and press Enter.
A list of results is displayed. Press Down Arrow to move through the results. When you wish to follow an account, press Enter to open it.
Now, you can either press the Tab key once to reach the Button to follow the account and press the Space Bar, or to carry out other actions, activate the Context Menu by pressing ALT+Windows+F10.
If a post is focused, you can activate the Context Menu on it by pressing ALT+Windows+F10. This allows you to follow or unfollow the user, mute the user so you will not see posts again, and other actions. Locate the item you would like with the Up and Down Arrow keys, and press Enter. There is in addition an item listed which is "Not Interested". This again influences the X algorithm described above.
Many people do have usernames on X which do not reflect their individual names. They can also contain emoji characters or the term, "Verified Account". This means that it can take time for the screen-reader to announce. You can condense this spoken output through the assigning of a nickname; a short-form.
Focus on a post containing the username and press ALT+Windows+X. Check to ensure that the correct username is in the edit field and press Enter.
Next, type the abbreviated form and press Enter.
That's it. From this point, JAWS should announce (and display in Braille) the abbreviated form. To delete any of your nicknames, press ALT+Control+Windows+X to bring into view a list of these. Find the one you want with Down Arrow and press Enter.
If you wish to share your nicknames across computers, in your JAWS Settings/ENU folder, find the file TwitterNames.ini and just copy it to the other machine.
You can press Insert+H to get a list of keystrokes for X. You will notice at the bottom of the Hotkey Help screen is a link entitled "Check for Updates." Press Enter on this link to check to see if there are any new X Script updates available. Back to Help Index.