What is Lights Off?¶

Lights Off is a desktop Mastodon client built specifically for users who rely on screen readers or prefer a purely keyboard-driven interface. It is a fork of Quinter, which was originally a Twitter client, converted to work with the Mastodon API.

Design principles¶

Keyboard-first. Every timeline, action, and setting is reachable without a mouse. Menus carry accelerators; the most common actions have single-chord shortcuts.

Screen-reader-first. On Windows the app talks directly to NVDA, JAWS, or SAPI through Tolk. On macOS it uses accessible_output2 to reach VoiceOver. All status text is spoken as you move through the list; earcon sounds play when new posts arrive.

Lightweight. The UI is two list boxes — one for timelines, one for the posts in the selected timeline. There is no WebView, no embedded browser, no images rendered inline.

What it is not¶

Lights Off is not a general-purpose graphical Mastodon client. If you want image previews, video thumbnails, an emoji picker, or a point-and-click interface, other clients will serve you better. Lights Off trades visual richness for reliability with assistive technology.

Technology¶

Layer	Library
GUI	wxPython 4.2+
Mastodon API	Mastodon.py 2.2+
Screen reader (Windows)	Tolk (LGPLv3, Davy Kager) + SAPI
Screen reader (macOS)	accessible_output2
Audio	sound_lib (BASS on Windows, CoreAudio on macOS)
Configuration	tweak