buffr — accessibility

Honest status: web content is accessible (CEF feature); native chrome currently isn't. Keyboard-only operation is comprehensive. A high-contrast theme is available.

Web content (CEF renderer accessibility tree)

When [accessibility] force_renderer_accessibility = true, buffr's App::on_before_command_line_processing injects the --force-renderer-accessibility Chromium switch. This causes the renderer to build the accessibility tree for every page; platform screen readers (Orca/AT-SPI on Linux, VoiceOver/NSAccessibility on macOS, NVDA/JAWS via MSAA on Windows) consume that tree the same way they would for Chromium proper.

The default is false because building the tree is a non-trivial per-frame cost users without an AT don't need. Users who rely on a screen reader should enable it on first launch.

The cef crate buffr pins (152.x, wrapping libcef 152.0.6) does not expose a Settings::accessibility_state field; the command-line switch path is the supported wiring. (There is also a SetAccessibilityState method on the per-browser host that can be flipped later, but the command-line switch covers every renderer at process start.)

Native chrome — keyboard-first, no AT bridge yet

The statusline, tab strip, command bar, omnibar, and permissions prompt are rasterized on the CPU into a pixel buffer and uploaded to the GPU with wgpu (softbuffer was replaced by the wgpu present layer). They are not part of any DOM and are not exposed via platform accessibility APIs. (The hint overlay is the exception: it is injected into the page DOM — see hint-mode.md.) Real cross-platform native a11y bridges (AT-SPI, NSAccessibility, MSAA) are substantial multi- platform work and are deferred to post-1.0.

Until then, every chrome surface is reachable via the keyboard:

• : / ; — command line
• e / <C-l> — omnibar
• o / O — new tab right / left (omnibar opens for the URL)
• f / F — hint mode (foreground / background)
• gt / gT, H / L — next / prev tab
• d or <C-w> — close tab; u or <C-S-t> — reopen closed tab
• <Space>p (<leader>p) — pin/unpin the active tab
• <C-S-h> / <C-S-l> — move the active tab left / right
• J / K (or <C-o> / <C-i>) — history back / forward
• r / <C-r> — reload / hard reload
• / / ? / n / N — find / find-backwards / next-match / prev-match
• y — yank the URL (in Visual mode, the selection)
• + / = / - / 0 — zoom in / in / out / reset
• <F12> / <C-S-i> — devtools

Run buffr --audit-keymap to print the full table from any shell, or read keymap.md. The every_user_facing_action_has_a_default_binding unit test guards against drift: a new PageAction variant lands in buffr-modal → either it gets a default binding or the test fails. (Caveat: the test scans the static binding table rather than the built trie, so a chord bound twice can mask a shadowed action — StopLoading is currently in that state, see keymap.md.)

High-contrast theme

[theme] high_contrast = true switches the chrome palette to:

The values pass WCAG AAA contrast against each other on the chrome surfaces. They live in Palette::high_contrast() in crates/buffr-ui/src/lib.rs, and they override every [theme] colour from the config.

What's deferred (post-1.0)

• AT-SPI bridge for the chrome on Linux.
• NSAccessibility bridge on macOS.
• MSAA + UI Automation bridge on Windows.
• Larger-text option for the chrome font (crates/buffr-ui/src/font.rs rasterizes at a fixed TARGET_PX = 15.0 with no user scale).
• Reduced-motion preference. There is no way to turn chrome animation off: the ASCII splash loading animation (apps/buffr-app/src/loading_anim.rs, a ~2 s cycle at 12 fps) and the page-load progress bar both animate unconditionally.

If any of these block your daily use, file an issue at https://github.com/kryptic-sh/buffr/issues.