As part of our volunteer-driven accessibility initiative in GNOME Calendar, and for the first time in the 10+ years of Calendar's existence, we finally completed and merged the first step needed to have a working calendar app for people who rely on keyboard navigation. This merge request in particular makes the event widgets focusable with navigation keys (arrow left/up/right/down) and activatable with space/enter. This will be available in GNOME 49.
Most of GNOME Calendar's layout and widgets consist of custom widgets and complex calculations, both independently and according to other factors (window size, height and width of each cell, number of events, positioning, etc.), so these widgets need to be minimal to have as little overhead as possible. This means that these widgets also need to have the necessary accessibility features reimplemented or even rethought, including and starting with the event widgets.
We also hope to get other parts of GNOME Calendar accessible before GNOME 49, but I can't promise anything at the moment. We did start working with making the month view accessible: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-c…
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Make the event widget accessible (!559) · Merge requests · GNOME / gnome-calendar · GitLab
This implements button functionality to make it able to focus and activate it. This also sets the appropriate accessibility role and labels/descriptions. Related:GitLab
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TheEvilSkeleton
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •Continuing our volunteer effort to make GNOME Calendar fully accessible with a keyboard (see thread for context), we fixed a major bug that was causing the focus to disappear into the abyss when the user tried to tab into the month view in merge request !576. This means, as of this commit, events should now be completely functional and accessible within the month view. Additionally, the merge request changes the keyboard and focus behavior within the month view: Events can only be cycled using arrow buttons, the focus can't escape the month view with arrow buttons, and entering/exiting the month view can only be done with tab. These improvements will be available on GNOME 49.
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Improve accessibility with event widgets in the month view (!576) · Merge requests · GNOME / gnome-calendar · GitLab
GitLabTheEvilSkeleton
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •Happy Disability Pride Month everybody :)
During the past few weeks, there's been an overwhelming amount of progress with accessibility on GNOME Calendar:
• Event widgets/popovers will convey to screen readers that they are toggle buttons. They will also convey of their states (whether they're pressed or not) and that they have a popover.
• Calendar rows will convey to screen readers that they are check boxes, along with their states (whether they're checked or not). Additionally, they will no longer require a second press of a tab to get to the next row; one tab will be sufficient.
• Month and year spin buttons are now capable of being interacted with using arrow up/down buttons. They will also convey to screen readers that they are spin buttons, along with their properties (current, minimum, and maximum values). The month spin button will also wrap, where going back a month from January will jump to December, and going to the next month from December will jump to January.
• Events in the agenda view will convey to screen readers of their respective titles and descriptions.
Accessibility on Calendar has progressed to the point where I believe it's safe to say that, as of GNOME 49, Calendar will be usable exclusively with a keyboard, without significant usability friction!
There's still a lot of work to be done in regards to screen readers, for example conveying time appropriately and event descriptions. But really, just 6 months ago, we went from having absolutely no idea where to even begin with accessibility in Calendar — which has been an ongoing issue for literally a decade — to having something workable exclusively with a keyboard and screen reader! :3
Huge thanks to @nekohayo for coordinating the accessibility initiative, especially with keeping the accessibility meta issue updated; Georges Stavracas for single-handedly maintaining GNOME Calendar and reviewing all my merge requests; and @tyrylu for sharing feedback in regards to usability.
All my work so far has been unpaid and voluntary; hundreds of hours were put into developing and testing all the accessibility-related merge requests. I would really appreciate if you could spare a little bit of money to support my work, thank you 🩷
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Felipe Borges
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •TheEvilSkeleton
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •After two weeks of writing, revising, and trying to make everything as digestible as possible, I finally published "GNOME Calendar: A New Era of Accessibility Achieved in 90 Days", where I explain in detail the steps we took to turn GNOME Calendar from an app that was literally unusable with a keyboard and screen reader to an app that is (finally) accessible to keyboard and screen reader users as of GNOME 49!
tesk.page/2025/07/25/gnome-cal…
#GNOMECalendar #GNOME #Accessibility #a11y #DisabilityPrideMonth #Linux #FOSS #OSS #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #GTK #libadwaita
GNOME Calendar: A New Era of Accessibility Achieved in 90 Days
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Devin Prater :blind:
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •Danielle Foré
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in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •This goes without saying: If you have some money to spare, I would genuinely appreciate it. I am not getting paid a single dollar from the work I'm doing (I wish I did).
At the time of writing this post, the merge request for making the month view accessible is sitting at around 500 lines diff, but that diff will only get bigger and bigger. A good portion of that time is also spent with my eyes closed with a screen reader. It takes a lot of time and energy to understand how everything connects in GNOME Calendar and researching about accessibility in a calendar app.
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ThonkDifferent
in reply to TheEvilSkeleton • • •Emmanuele Bassi
in reply to ThonkDifferent • • •there’s a workshop starting at 9 on Sunday about application accessibility at GUADEC
events.gnome.org/event/259/con…
GUADEC 2025
GNOME Events (Indico)Siilwyn
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