glitchsoc - Link to source

In other news: github.com/trypsynth/backtalk

GitHub - trypsynth/backtalk: A fork of Google's TalkBack screen reader for Android

A fork of Google's TalkBack screen reader for Android - trypsynth/backtalk
GitHub

Quin

2026-10-01 01:36:58

glitchsoc - Link to source

Why are you looking at me like that! I would never fork TalkBack to try and improve it with another blind Android hacker friend!

in reply to Quin
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Devin Prater :blind:

Oh yes please! • No "collapsed" on notifications. Backtalk does not say "collapsed" for each notification on the lock screen and in the notification shade. It still says "expanded" when you open one, and it still says "collapsed" in other apps.
in reply to Peter Vágner
glitchsoc - Link to source

Quin

@pvagner @GrapheneOS The talkback foss project seemed unmaintained last I looked at it, with no commits this year. Didn't know about Graphine's fork though, will have to give that a look.
@Peter Vágner @GrapheneOS

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in reply to Quin
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Peter Vágner

@Quin I think the @GrapheneOS one looks to be acontinuation of talkback-foss. If your changes would be accepted there I think it might become a nice place for your improvements.
Graphene are modernizing a lot of android aosp apps enhancing or rewriting them including camera, messages and more.

Perhaps they will be fine including curated screen reader changes from you. That way everyone would benefit.

@Quin @GrapheneOS
in reply to Peter Vágner
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GrapheneOS

Most of the work done on our TalkBack fork has been done by a blind user in the GrapheneOS community. However, it seems he doesn't have much time to work on it anymore. We're in the process of landing an update of his last PR rebasing onto the latest TalkBack release in this pull request:

github.com/GrapheneOS/talkback…

It needs a lot of testing and it's not easy for us to do that ourselves since none of us rely on it or are familiar with every part of the core feature set.

Rebase into upstream by RankoR · Pull Request #121 · GrapheneOS/talkback

Fixed version of #115 TODOs from the original PR are also resolved now.
GitHub
This entry was edited (Thursday, October 1, 2026, 4:28 PM)
in reply to GrapheneOS
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Peter Vágner

@GrapheneOS Oh it looks cool. I will try to build it and install here to at least let you know it's working fine. Still I believe @Quin has some interesting performance improvements and braille keyboard enhancements in his fork that would be amazing to borrow.
@Quin @GrapheneOS
in reply to Quin
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Devin Prater :blind:

I kinda wonder if we could have plugins? Or, at least, make stuff like the ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini apps auto-read incoming responses. I started working on that a bit, but ChatGPT app changed a bit so that part isn't working right now. Mine uses an accessibility service.

github.com/devinprater/Waypoin…

GitHub - devinprater/Waypoint: Android accessibility utility that reads completed AI responses through TalkBack

Android accessibility utility that reads completed AI responses through TalkBack - devinprater/Waypoint
GitHub
in reply to aryan
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Simon Jaeger

@Aryan @pixelate I haven't looked at it very closely but TalkForward has some kind of Lua sandbox for creating scripts.
As an aside, I think it's hilarious and sad that at least three projects have now attempted faster navigation than Google's Talkback, and succeeded. Why on earth has Google left theirs in such a sorry state?
@Devin Prater :blind: @aryan
in reply to Simon Jaeger
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JamminJerry

@simon @Aryan @pixelate I will tell you what is also sad. the fact that talkback has a thing for reading notifications when the screen is off, and most notifications aren't even read to you. of the ones that are, you don't hear very much of it at all. I had to install an app for doing this. I mean this is ok, as I don't want every single one read to me, just spasific ones, so this works great, but still. if you are going to have a feature like read notifications when the screen is off, then it should do what it says it does. smile. sadly the forks of talkback do the same thing. as they are just a fork.
@Devin Prater :blind: @aryan @Simon Jaeger
in reply to Quin
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Robert Kingett

By @TheQuinbox Backtalk is a fork of Google's TalkBack, the screen reader for blind and visually-impaired users of Android. It adds fixes and features on top of Google's source releases. It is not affiliated with Google. github.com/trypsynth/backtalk #Android #Google #Accessibility #A11y #TalkBack

GitHub - trypsynth/backtalk: A fork of Google's TalkBack screen reader for Android

A fork of Google's TalkBack screen reader for Android - trypsynth/backtalk
GitHub
#a11y #Accessibility #android #google #talkback @Quin

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