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# Is there a way to turn Squiffy passage links into a regular link for accessibility purposes?

+1 vote
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asked Jun 27 in Authoring by Orinks (6 points)
edited Jul 9 by Orinks

Hi everyone,
I just discovered Squiffy due to checking out the IFWiki. I like it's simple approach to gamebook creation, and I wonder why one would use Quest for gamebooks now unless they wanted multimedia.
I'm curious: since I'm using a screen reader, is there a way to modify both passage and section links to turn into regular links such as those created with the aref HTML tag rather than what it is currently using? I found that with my screen reader of choice at the moment, pressing enter on the links doesn't work and I have to route my screen reader's simulated mouse to the word and click, whereas with a regular link I can simply press enter on it.
The link I am talking about is, after clicking on an image to pass the title screen in Spondre, there is a "click to continue" link that's perfect. Though, pressing enter on the title image worked.
So I'm playing Spondre now and these clickable links are working great. They didn't work so well in the Squiffy documentation though, I couldn't click Roast Chicken or the other links in that scratchpad example. Also, in the examples, I get what appears to be an empty multiline text box, with numbers 1 to however many lines the example contains. I should be able to edit the example, but my screen reader thinks that text box above the example and number of lines is empty.
When I look at the example, I can't see where a new line ends and where a new line begins, so I thought that maybe the text box would give a clue as to how it was written.
Also, a design question going around in my head is, for the benefit of blind players, should I clear the screen for passages in rooms? Spondre, while playable, makes it a bit hard to find new text. I haven't found anymore Squiffy games on Textadventures.

Update: I'll have to see about new Squiffy games with this corrected tag. I'm more interested in creating them, though. I hope an accessible editor can be found.

- squiffy
- accessibility

commented Jul 7 by Alex (486 points)
I've now updated the compiler to add role="link" to <a> tags (which don't have an href). Hopefully this means your screen reader will pick up links now.

## 1 Answer

0 votes
answered Jun 28 by Alex (486 points)

Thanks for reporting this. The Squiffy compiler probably needs to add some aria attribute to the HTML, so the screen reader can detect the link properly. I have added this to the issue log here: https://github.com/textadventures/squiffy/issues/50

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