It seems that they haven't gotten the idea, after all. I got interested in a nice GUI app for mastodon recently, called tuba. I discovered that it used GTK 4, however. I knew there were rumors about accessibility problems, of course, but what better way to learn than to experience it for yourself? So that's what I did.

Oh dear, was I disapointed! The first thing that struk me when launching the app, is the fact that the flat review of orca stopped working. Second, that it appears that GTK 4 and orca are fighting over the keyboard. I can't make orca stop talking, I can't know on which element on the UI I'm on until it finished talking the previous thing it was saying and moves onto this one. I can't use any screen reader shortcut, either.

It is exactly, if not worse, than QT 4 was, when accessibility was barely considered.

But, enough about GTK. I'm now moving on to xorg and wayland.

Xorg was good. It was buggy, it was not especially secure for various things, but it worked. More importantly, it allowed the screen reader to perform relatively good.

Wayland, on the other hand, is the complete oposite. Oh sure it works for general use. But the minute you try to use mouse emulation to click on an element of the interface, be it on a website or in a program, orca crashes. Don't ask me why, I don't know. Orca is now no longer allowed to provide a clipboard, either. The excuse the wayland folks gave was security. Applications that lack a window, focused window at that, will not be allowed to use the clipboard. Well, guess what? To be able to copy the content of a window for example an error message to share it with people for assistance, one needs to focus that window. Not orca. Oh, and by the way, it's been *years* orca has had a window.

So then, you might ask me, why don't you just use QT programs if they work better? Well, the fact that QT 6 is out is great, but it also cause regressions. QT is nowhere near perfect. It is nowhere as usable as gtk 2 and 3 ever were, when things used to be done properly.

That aside it seems that QT accessibility features are opt-in rather than opt-out. I could be wrong about that, and as a matter of fact, I hope I am.

And, even if it was that simple, there remains the fact that wayland complicates my life even more due to the so-called security and the problems it creates for assistive technology. And I'm tired.

I'm done dealing with this. I'm done trying and trying to summon the energy to make yet another bug report and feeling like deep down it won't matter in the end. I'm officially jaded.

As of this morning, I've gone back to windows for any program with a GUI. Granted so far it is only for web browsing, as the rest of my activities are doable in console, and I do enjoy the console.

But there you have it.

Maybe some other people will pick up where I left. Maybe noone will. But at this point, I'm done. I can't keep on damaging my own mental health for the benefit of reporting bugs that might get fixed, but most likely won't. I can't keep dealing with this. As of today, I'm done with this entire thing.

To whoever resist out there, I can only wish one thing. Good luck, and don't sacrifice your mental health for it. Don't do the same thing I've done. Please be safe, and remember that going back to windows for some thing is nothing to be ashamed of. There comes a time where open source doesn't matter and accessibility gets the priority for everyone. Mine has been reached, and then some.