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Accessibility

Reference for the accessibility features Baudrun ships with, the OS settings they interact with, and the known gaps.

Screen reader support

  • Settings → Advanced → Enable xterm screen-reader mode.
  • Backed by Settings.screenReaderMode; pushed into xterm via term.options.screenReaderMode at init and on every subsequent toggle.
  • When enabled, xterm routes incoming terminal output through an ARIA live region, which macOS VoiceOver / Windows Narrator / NVDA / Orca can narrate.
  • Off by default — there's a small performance cost on heavy output (the live region gets updated on every write), so users who don't need it don't pay for it.

Verification: with the toggle on, run in the app's DevTools console:

document.querySelector('.xterm-accessibility')

If it returns an element, xterm is in screen-reader mode. If null, the toggle didn't land.

Reduced motion

Baudrun respects the OS-level prefers-reduced-motion preference.

Where the setting lives:

OS Location
macOS System Settings → Accessibility → Display → Reduce motion
Windows Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects → Animation effects (off)
Linux (GNOME) Settings → Accessibility → Reduce animations

What's gated on it:

  • The reconnecting pulse — the amber dot in the session header while auto-reconnect polls for the port. With Reduce Motion on, the dot stays visible as a static amber indicator instead of pulsing.
  • The port-scanning pulse — the accent-colored dot next to the "Scanning for COM ports…" status in the footer. Static under Reduce Motion.

Caveat: WKWebView on macOS sometimes caches the prefers-reduced-motion value at page load. If the setting is toggled while Baudrun is open, the animations may not change until the app is quit and relaunched. This is an upstream WebKit behavior shared across Tauri / Electron / any embedded WebKit consumer, not something Baudrun can work around.

Terminal zoom

  • Cmd + "=" / Ctrl + "=" (or the literal + key): font +1
  • Cmd + "-" / Ctrl + "-": font −1
  • Cmd + "0" / Ctrl + "0": reset to 13 (the app default)

Clamped 8-28 px. The shortcut also echoes Font size: N to the status bar so users get immediate feedback that the change registered.

Zoom writes through to Settings.fontSize, so it persists across app launches. The xterm instance rebuilds on each change to pick up the new cell metrics — xterm caches glyph dimensions at construction, so an in-place font-size change wouldn't re-measure.

Session shortcuts

For the three session-header buttons that are otherwise mouse-only — Clear, Send Break, Suspend. See Keyboard shortcuts for the default bindings table, the per-OS rationale, and how to rebind them via Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts.

Each shortcut gates on the same enablement as the button it mirrors — Break and Suspend are no-ops without an active (unsuspended, not-reconnecting) session; Clear needs the terminal view to be up. The shortcuts also appear in each button's title tooltip and aria-keyshortcuts attribute so keyboard-first and screen-reader users discover them without having to read this page.

ARIA labels

Every icon-only or text-light control has an explicit aria-label:

  • Sidebar → New Profile (+ icon)
  • Profile form → Rescan ports (↻ icon), Dismiss driver notice (× on the driver-install banner)
  • Settings → Preview theme, Remove theme, Remove skin
  • Session header → More actions (⋯ overflow menu)
  • Modal dismiss buttons (×) on Hex send, File transfer, Theme preview

Text-labeled controls (DTR/RTS pills, Clear, Suspend, Disconnect, Send Break, Send Hex…, Send File…, Settings) rely on their visible text.

Not yet supported

  • High-contrast theme mode independent of skin. Today the High Contrast skin is the explicit a11y surface; there's no per-user "force high contrast" toggle that overrides the chosen skin. Likely unnecessary since the skin exists, but noted.
  • Focus-ring overrides per skin. Some skins don't currently set a custom :focus-visible style; the browser default falls through, which is usable but could be more consistent.

Verifying with DevTools

For debug builds, right-click inside the app → Inspect. The DevTools Rendering panel can emulate accessibility preferences without changing the OS setting:

  • Emulate CSS media feature → prefers-reduced-motion: reduce to test the static-dot behavior.
  • Emulate vision deficiencies → blurred vision, achromatopsia, etc. — useful for evaluating color contrast on themes and skins.