Accessibility

Caller's Compendium is built to be usable at the dance, on stage, and at your desk — whatever tools you rely on. This guide gathers the accessibility features in one place: larger text, high-contrast themes, screen-reader support, full keyboard control, and small comforts like reduced motion and confirmations before deleting. The app is built to a WCAG 2.2 AA commitment, with extra care given to Perform mode, because that's the screen you read on a dim stage, at arm's length, often one-handed and under pressure.

Finding your way around these words. On-screen buttons and screens are written in bold — like Settings, Appearance, and Reduce motion. The first time a dance term appears it links to the Glossary, so you can get a plain-language definition without losing your place.

If you're brand new to the app, the Getting started guide is a gentle first walkthrough. Everything below can be adjusted at any time, and most of it lives under Settings.

Bigger, clearer text

Text size matters most when you're reading and moving at the same time. Caller's Compendium gives you two layers of control.

System text size, everywhere. The app respects your device's system text-size setting throughout. If you've already made text larger in your operating system's accessibility settings, Caller's Compendium honors that choice automatically — no separate step needed. This is the simplest way to make every screen more readable at once.

Perform mode's own size control. Perform mode adds a second layer on top of your system setting, because a stage is a special case. Perform text starts large — sized to be readable at arm's length — and there's a very wide range beyond that.

Auto-size fits each card's text to the screen so nothing scrolls off. It's on by default. Set how it starts under Settings › General › Auto-size Perform cards, and flip it for the night with Auto-size text to screen in Perform itself.
The Decrease text size and Increase text size buttons — A− and A+ — set the size yourself. Using either one switches auto-size off, and the size you land on is remembered for next time. Choose whatever is comfortable for the room you're calling in.

On a tablet or desktop these sit in Perform's toolbar. On a phone they tuck into its More actions menu, where each keeps its full text label and toggles announce whether they're on.

For the full walkthrough of calling from the app — including these controls in context — see the Perform mode guide.

Themes, contrast, and the dark stage

Open Settings › Appearance to choose how the app looks. You'll find:

System — follows your device's light or dark setting automatically, and switches when your device does.
Light — a bright theme for well-lit rooms and daytime prep.
Dark — an easy-on-the-eyes theme that suits calling on a dark stage.
High Contrast — a dedicated theme tuned for strong legibility, with bold separation between text and background.

There are additional palettes and custom themes to explore as well, but those four are the ones most people reach for first — see Settings › Appearance.

For calling on a dim stage, Dark and High Contrast are the natural choices — they keep the screen from glaring at the room while staying readable for you. If you navigate with a keyboard, you'll notice that focus outlines are clearly visible as you move between controls, and they're especially strong in High Contrast.

A stage theme just for calling. Perform mode opens on its own dark, high-contrast look — built for a contrast ratio of at least 7 to 1 under stage lighting — without changing the theme you use everywhere else. The Stage theme toggle stays in Perform's toolbar even on a phone, so it's always one reach away, and its tooltip says which state you're in: Stage theme on — tap to use app theme, or Stage theme off — tap for dark stage. Your choice is remembered, so once you've set it for the hall you call in, it's there next time.

Caller's Compendium works with the screen reader on your platform:

VoiceOver on macOS and iOS/iPadOS
TalkBack on Android
Narrator, NVDA, or JAWS on Windows
Orca on Linux (best-effort support)

Screens are labelled so a screen reader can describe them meaningfully. As you work, the app announces changes you'd otherwise have to see:

Search result counts and selection counts are announced as they change, so you know how many matches or selected items you have.
Moving a slot or a figure is announced as it happens.
A dance's figure list, the program matrix grid, and dance details all read as structured, spoken-friendly text. For example, a figure reads as its full spoken wording along with its beat count and whether it progresses.

Verbose figure text. Turn on Settings › General › Always show verbose figure text to display the full spoken-style wording of each figure on screen in the dance view — not only through a screen reader. This helps screen-reader users confirm what's shown, and it's just as useful for anyone who prefers plain, spoken wording over terse notation.

In Perform, you don't need to turn anything on. Perform mode always announces each figure in its expanded, spoken-friendly form, whatever that setting says, so what you hear on stage is always the fuller wording.

A brief, honest note: screen-reader support is real and actively maintained, but we don't claim that every corner of every screen is perfectly covered. If you hit a spot that reads poorly, we'd genuinely like to hear about it — see Help us improve below.

Using the keyboard

You can drive Caller's Compendium from the keyboard without reaching for a pointer.

Quick search. Press Ctrl-K (or Cmd-K on macOS) from anywhere to open a search box over whatever you're doing. Start typing to filter your dances and programs, use the up and down arrow keys to move through results, press Enter to open the highlighted item, and press Esc to close.

Moving through Perform mode. In Perform mode, move between slots with the left and right arrow keys, or with Page Up and Page Down. These work alongside the on-screen next and previous controls and the large edge zones, so you can use whichever suits you.

Reordering without dragging. Anything that supports dragging — program slots, figures — also offers move-up and move-down actions, plus cut and paste. You never need to drag to reorder something.

Always know where you are. Interactive controls show a visible focus outline as you move through them, so you can always see which control has focus.

Motion, deleting, and other comforts

A few smaller settings and behaviors round out the experience:

Reduce motion (Settings › General) dampens non-essential animation. If you've already turned on Reduce Motion (or Remove animations) in your device's system accessibility settings, the app honors that automatically — you don't have to find this switch first. Flip the in-app switch when you want to override the system setting in either direction.
Confirm before delete (Settings › General) adds a prompt before you delete a dance or a program. And regardless of this setting, deletes are undoable — so a slip is recoverable either way.
Meaning is never carried by color alone. Statuses and special slots — like an alt — always include an icon and a text label as well as color, so nothing depends on being able to distinguish hues.
Perform mode keeps the screen awake. The display won't dim or sleep mid-dance while you're calling.
Comfortable touch targets. Controls are sized to be easy to hit, and the large edge zones in Perform give you generous, forgiving areas for moving between slots.

Help us improve

Accessibility is an ongoing commitment, not a finished checkbox. Everything above is available today, but we know real-world use turns up rough edges we haven't found yet. If a screen reads awkwardly, a control is hard to reach, or something just doesn't work the way it should for you, please tell us through the project's issue tracker — you'll find the link in the project README. Your reports genuinely make the app better for everyone.

Where to go next

Perform mode — large-print calling, A−/A+, Auto-size, and the stage theme in full context.
Settings — where Appearance, Reduce motion, verbose figure text, and other options live.
Dialect — how figures are worded and how dialect affects what you read.
Programs & matrix — building and reordering the matrix by keyboard or pointer.
Write & edit dances — the editor, including keyboard-first figure entry and undo.
Getting started — a first tour of the app if you're new here.