lights-off 0.1.0

An accessible Mastodon client for screen reader users, fork of Quinter

lights-off

lights-off is a lightweight, keyboard-driven, accessible Mastodon client for Windows and macOS, built with wxPython. It is a fork of Quinter, a Twitter client, converted for the Mastodon network.

Every action is reachable by keyboard shortcut. All content is routed through the platform screen reader (NVDA/JAWS/SAPI on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS) so blind and low-vision users can browse, post, and manage their account without touching the mouse.

Install

pipx install lights-off

Requires Python 3.12+. See the installation docs for platform-specific steps.

Run

lights-off

On first launch you will be prompted for your Mastodon instance URL (e.g. https://mastodon.social) and will complete a one-time OAuth browser flow.

Documentation

Full documentation is at https://lights-off.readthedocs.io/.

• Installation
• Screen reader setup
• Keyboard reference
• Troubleshooting

Development

git clone https://github.com/matthewdeanmartin/lights-off
cd lights-off
uv sync
uv run lights-off

Run tests across all supported Python versions:

tox

Contributing

Pull requests welcome. For large feature additions, open an issue first.

Licenses

• Quinter - no declared license, per Mastodon conversation with Quinn, forking and MIT is okay.
• SAAPI65.dll - (C) All rights reserved
• nvdaControllerClient64.dll LGPL
• GPL-2.0-only. Tolk.py is LGPLv3 (copyright Davy Kager).
• .ogg soundfiles - unknown license
• keyboard_handler - vendorized, MIT, copyright Christopher Toth