Who is Lights Off for?¶

Primary audience¶

Blind and low-vision Mastodon users who use NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver as their primary means of interacting with a computer. The application was designed so that a user who never looks at the screen can still browse timelines, post, reply, boost, and manage their account entirely by keyboard and ear.

Secondary audience¶

Power users who prefer keyboard-only workflows. If you are sighted but would rather not reach for the mouse, Lights Off's accelerator-heavy interface may appeal to you.

What you need¶

• A Mastodon account on any instance (e.g. mastodon.social, fosstodon.org, etc.)
• Windows 10/11 or macOS 12+
• Python 3.12 or newer (if installing from PyPI)
• A working screen reader (optional but the main use case)

What you do not need¶

• Any familiarity with the command line beyond a single pip install step
• A Twitter or X account — Mastodon is a fully separate, open network