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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 18-Feb-2024 22:11:05 JST Aral Balkan

   You’d think that in 2024 you’d have an easier way to enter a true minus sign glyph (−) instead of a dash (-) in Linux.

   And this isn’t just one for typography geeks either, it’s an accessibility issue. Imagine you have a minus button. A screenreader would read it as a dash button unless you used the proper character. (The workaround, of course, is to use aria-label.)

   #typography #characters #accessibility #a11y #linux #web

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 00:46:03 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Piggo :verified_horse:
     • Jure Repinc :linux: :kde:

     @JRepin @piggo That’s shorter; thanks :)

   • Embed this notice
     Jure Repinc :linux: :kde: (jrepin@mstdn.io)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 00:46:04 JST Jure Repinc :linux: :kde:

     in reply to

     • Piggo :verified_horse:

     @piggo @aral
     Minus sign is <Compose>, -, _

     see https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libX11/plain/nls/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.pre for more compose key combos, where <Multi_key> is the compose key

   • Embed this notice
     Piggo :verified_horse: (piggo@piggo.space)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 00:46:10 JST Piggo :verified_horse:

     in reply to
     @aral i need it very rarely, but it's on compose, quite simple. I think -. or --.
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 02:29:52 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Matthew Malthouse

     @calmeilles There apparently is a compose key combination for it so that’s good enough for me :) https://mstdn.io/@JRepin/111953078712412670

   • Embed this notice
     Matthew Malthouse (calmeilles@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 02:29:54 JST Matthew Malthouse

     in reply to

     @aral

     How do you want to access it?

     U+2212 is a bit clunky but with so many characters available how do you make a selection and which keystrokes do you assign them to?

     I've no real idea myself. Computer keyboards are so damned inadequate for typesetting purposes.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 05:58:48 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • 𝚗𝚎𝚘 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚗

     @neopostmodern Separate glyph.

   • Embed this notice
     𝚗𝚎𝚘 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚗 (neopostmodern@tldr.nettime.org)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 05:58:50 JST 𝚗𝚎𝚘 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚗

     in reply to

     @aral
     Is "true minus" the same as en-dash or yet another one?

   • Embed this notice
     Jeffrey D. Stark (jstark@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 16:03:05 JST Jeffrey D. Stark

     in reply to

     @aral I'm not stupid just cuz I use a screen reader dude

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 16:03:05 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jeffrey D. Stark

     @JStark Hi Jeffrey, I’m not sure how that’s what you got from my post. Are you telling me I’m wrong for caring about trying to make things as easy to understand and use as possible? Because that’s my job as a designer. And I don’t see accessibility as extrinsic to good design. Just as having one button have a label (in text) that says “plus” while the other (in text) says “dash” is bad design so is the equivalent using glyphs.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 16:05:13 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jeffrey D. Stark

     @JStark (So it’s not because I think you’re stupid. It’s because I care about your experience as much as I care about the experience of folks who don’t use screen readers.)

     This isn’t specific to accessibility/inclusivity but if you want to understand my approach to design, here’s a little something I wrote a while ago:

     http://www.breakingthin.gs/this-is-all-there-is.html