February 2026 - MBraille-Test

Test mail
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 8, 2026

Feb. 8, 2026

Hi everyone, I changed the list settings so that the reply should go to list by default. This is just to test that. Best regards, Harri

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Re: v0.9.6 fix version out
by Richard Turner Feb. 8, 2026

Feb. 8, 2026

Hi Jean-philippe and all, The list is set up to reply directly to the sender, so in this case, I remembered to paste in the list address instead of your direct one. Harri, can the list be set to reply to the list by default? Jean-philippe, if it was only effecting Command Mode, and it wasn't too difficult for Harri to implement, I could support that. I just know from my years as a Braille instructor, that the contextual use of Braille is rather involved and I'm amazed that any program can handle all the exceptions, and MBraille does an excellent job at this. I couldn't imagine trying to program this, so if it can be done and is made clear it is only in Command Mode, that would work. I suspect though, that it might end up meaning all commands would be uncontracted, but let's hear from Harri on that. Richard, "It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." Herman Melville My web site: https://www.turner42.com From: Jean-philippe Rykiel <jprykiel(a)gmail.com> Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2026 7:13 AM To: Richard Turner <richardturner42(a)outlook.com> Subject: Re: [MBraille-Test] Re: v0.9.6 fix version out Hey Richard. 1st of all, I think this list is behaving a bit strangely. You replied to me in private instead of to the whole list, and it happens to me too, I don't know why, so Harri and the other list members didn't see your reply I believe. Okay, let me try to advocate this little request a little more. In fact, I may have expressed myself wrongly. It is the command mode as a whole that doesn't need contractions. So really the idea would be to disable contractions while command mode is on. If this was working the way I think it should, it would just save you one keystroke. The reason I thought of it is because I was trying to execute my fr command, and it never worked until I realised it was expanding as friend. The word friend was not spoken because I didn't insert a space after I typed fr, and I believe words are not spoken when you swipe down in command mode. So I don't know if you're seeing my point, but I think it would make the whole command process simpler, and not more complicated, without you having to think of disabling contractions at all. Tell me, what disadvantage would it have for you if this feature was implemented? Best regards, JPR http://www.jprykiel.com<http://www.jprykiel.com/> https://www.youtube.com/c/jprykiel http://soundcloud.com/ryksounet https://www.youtube.com/c/jprykielhttp://facebook.com/jeanphilipperykiel Le 08/02/2026 à 13:53, Richard Turner a écrit : I would hate that solution. the dot 5,6 solves the issue with no complicated hoops to jump through. Braille is complicated enough in my opinion. Richard "Reality is the leading cause of stress for those who are in touch with it." -- Jane Wagner, from The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. My web site: https://www.turner42.com<https://www.turner42.com/> Sent from my iPhone 16 Pro On Feb 8, 2026, at 1:55 AM, Jean-philippe Rykiel via MBraille-Test <mbraille-test(a)lists.mpaja.com><mailto:mbraille-test@lists.mpaja.com> wrote: Hey Harri. What did you think of my idea which was to disable contractions for the 1st word after common mode has been turned on? Is it doable, and do you think it's a good one? Here is an example in which it would be handy. I set up a new command alias, just as you suggested, fr to expand as lang fr. It works perfectly, except that if contraction is on, fr will expand as friend, in English braille, so I had to backup a few characters to erase the unwanted ones, or I could have pressed dots 56 to disable contractions for this word. Tell me what you think. Cheers, JPR http://www.jprykiel.com<http://www.jprykiel.com/> https://www.youtube.com/c/jprykiel http://soundcloud.com/ryksounet https://www.youtube.com/c/jprykielhttp://facebook.com/jeanphilipperykiel Le 08/02/2026 à 10:03, Harri Pasanen via MBraille-Test a écrit : Hi everyone, You should soon have a mail from Firebase about the new release to be installed. That mail has changelog entry of fixes done. Version 0.9.5 was a brave new release with some serious issues. My AI helpers had introduced a subtle bug and I had to use my meat brain to hunt it down and fix it. No matter which AI I asked to fix it for me, they all failed. So I guess score 1 for humanity, yay! :-) Known things remaining on my plate: * Settings accessibility is still overly complex. Problem is that when I fixed the accessible navigation, in TalkBack the actual switch toggles stopped working, while VoiceOver was fine. So some more work remains there. * Johanna reported that longer texts do no get fully copied to clipboard when moving away from MBraille. This seems to be a symptom of the same problem as before, affecting newer devices. My venerable 7 year old iPad works, so to reinvestigate. Best regards, Harri _______________________________________________ MBraille-Test mailing list -- mbraille-test(a)lists.mpaja.com<mailto:mbraille-test@lists.mpaja.com> To unsubscribe send an email to mbraille-test-leave(a)lists.mpaja.com<mailto:mbraille-test-leave@lists.mpaja.com> _______________________________________________ MBraille-Test mailing list -- mbraille-test(a)lists.mpaja.com<mailto:mbraille-test@lists.mpaja.com> To unsubscribe send an email to mbraille-test-leave(a)lists.mpaja.com<mailto:mbraille-test-leave@lists.mpaja.com>

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And some notes to self
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 7, 2026

Feb. 7, 2026

Me again... Just a heads up regarding two known issues in this build. File Opening: The new file selector appears to work, but the selected file is not actually loaded into the editor. Settings Accessibility: VoiceOver and TalkBack currently treat setting labels and their switches as separate items instead of a single unit, making navigation tedious. This second issue has been there a long time... Anyway, I am working on fixes for both and will have them ready shortly." Best regards, Harri

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Android specific info
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 7, 2026

Feb. 7, 2026

Hi everyone, There is one extra hurdle for testers you may have hit already, but for some reason I only hit it now. I went to settings to enable MBraille Beta in accessibility services, but it was disabled! When I clicked on MBraille Beta in settings under accessibility, I got the message: "Restricted setting, For your security, this setting is currently unavailable." The fix: "Restricted Settings." It is specifically designed to stop "sideloaded" apps—those installed via APK from places like Firebase, a browser, or an email—from accessing powerful permissions like Accessibility Services and Notification Listeners. Android treats these apps as "unverified" because they weren't installed through a recognized app store using the session-based installation API. The good news is that as a developer and tester, you can easily bypass this for your own app, in this case MBraille. **How to Unlock the Restricted Setting** To enable the service, you must manually "allow" the app to use restricted settings in the system menu. Follow these steps: Trigger the Dialog: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Installed Apps and tap on your app. You should see the "Restricted setting" pop-up. Tap OK. (This step is important; Android often won't show the unlock option until you've "seen" the restriction). Go to App Info: Navigate to Settings > Apps > See all apps and find your app in the list. Unlock Restrictions: * On the App Info page, look for the three-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner. Tap it and select "Allow restricted settings." You will likely be asked to verify your identity with your PIN, pattern, or fingerprint. Enable the Service: Now, go back to Settings > Accessibility > Installed Apps. MBraille Beta service should no longer be greyed out. You can now toggle it On. When MBraille is finally in the Play Store, Google should have verified the service and this extra hurdle is no longer there. Best regards, Harri

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MBraille 0.9.5 Update - Make a Wish
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 7, 2026

Feb. 7, 2026

Hi everyone, I’ve just released version 0.9.5. This update involved a lot of work under the hood, and I haven't had the chance to test every scenario thoroughly yet. Please let me know if you run into any unexpected issues. For the next release, I plan to pause on big new features to focus on stability and documentation. My main goals are: Filling gaps in the help documentation. Writing automated regression tests. General bug fixing and polishing. I do have a few smaller enhancements on my to-do list, specifically adding cheat sheets for interactions. The idea is that you could type the following to open them: help gestures help commands That said, if you have a feature request—small or large—that you'd like to see, please speak up! And as always, let me know if anything in this new version isn't working properly. Best, Harri

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v0.9.5: Remodeled the House
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 7, 2026

Feb. 7, 2026

Hi all, This release grew bigger than I intended, full change-log below, with some embedded questions. Next release will have less new features and more clean-up. I need to work on the help as well. # Version 0.9.5 Remodeled the house. Cool new and rewritten features. ## New Features * **Context sensitive help gesture** Hold dot 1 and swipe up with 2 fingers. * If you are in a text buffer, this announces your current filename, if it is open read-only, the word and character count, and if it has been modified. * If you are in command mode, it announces that. *Notes:* I'm planning to improve context-sensitive help in the future, possibly including a verbosity setting so that beginners can get more help (which might affect announcements elsewhere). Are there any announcements you would like to skip or shorten as an experienced user? * **Braille native file selector** The file selector I wrote for opening files initially was very bare-bones—kind of meh—but fully functional under iOS VoiceOver. However, for some reason, TalkBack really struggled with it (at least on my somewhat old Android 13 phone). Only "explore by touch" worked; I could not move the focus with swipes, and there were other glitches. So I thought I could do better. How about braille supremacy? I rewrote the file selector to be MBraille native, using MBraille gestures. **How it works:** When you issue the `open` command, it will list all the files in the MBraille document folder, one per line. The list acts like an MBraille text buffer. You can navigate and search the list like any MBraille text: * Hold dot 3 and swipe left or right to go to the next or previous file. * To select and open a file, swipe down for a newline (like pressing Enter on a PC). * If you want to dismiss the file selector, just swipe up with 4 fingers. The context-sensitive help tells you these basics. * **Close command** This empties the current buffer and renames it to "Unnamed." You would usually use this only if you have finished editing a file and want to start something new. If the current file has a name and is modified, you will be prompted to save your work. * **Keyboard Layout Reset** Sometimes the keyboard layout could get accidentally tangled and become hard to reset. I added a button to the end of settings to force a reset of the keyboard layout. * **Layout Verification** I also added layout verification. If the layout looks unreasonable, it is not accepted, and MBraille asks you to try again. Let me know if it is too strict and you cannot define your favorite layout any longer. *Thanks to Johanna for alerting me to this.* * **Force TTS Engine in Settings** In settings, you can now force VoiceOver or TalkBack to be used even if the braille table changes. I'm not sure how multilingual those voices are, but if I understood correctly, TalkBack and Eloquence should know how to switch readers for different languages. In any case, I think it will get better over time. * **Aliases: Extra Spicy** Aliases have been there for a long time, but now they got extra spicy. A new feature is **command aliases**, which are aliases that only work when they are the first word in the command buffer. Perhaps an example is the best way to explain them. If you put the following line in `alias.mb`: `command ml: mail mbraille-test(a)lists.mpaja.com` That will create a command alias called `ml`. Now, when you swipe up with 3 fingers, type `ml`, and swipe down, it will launch the mail app, using the current buffer as the mail body and the "To" address pointing to the testers' mailing list. I chose `ml` as shorthand for "Mailing List," but feel free to choose your own aliases. Other examples: ```text command fr: lang fr command en: lang en command w: whatsapp family ``` Now the new commands would be `fr`, `en`, and `w`. These would change the language to French, change the language to English, and open WhatsApp to send a message to your family (assuming you have a group called "family" in WhatsApp). **Gesture Binding:** There is one more new feature with aliases. I've reserved 4 gestures you can bind to an alias. The gestures are: **Hold dot 5 and swipe Up, Down, Left, or Right.** The syntax for these is: ```text bind-5u: existing-alias-name bind-5d: existing-alias-name bind-5l: existing-alias-name bind-5r: existing-alias-name ``` Again, some examples. Let's assume your `alias.mb` has the lines: ```text gbyf: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. bind-5u: gbyf ``` Now, when you are writing in MBraille, if you hold dot 5 and swipe up, the phrase "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish." is inserted at the cursor! You can also bind the gestures to command aliases. So, to switch the braille table to French with a gesture, you could do: ```text command fr: lang fr bind-5r: fr ``` To change aliases, just edit the `alias.mb` file and save it. All aliases are re-read from the file when it is saved or when MBraille starts. Note that when `alias.mb` is the file being edited, all aliases are disabled. ## Fixes * Fixed many hiccups with self-voicing where it would not say everything or would not stop on a long text even if the user tapped a dot. * Polished the accessibility announcements in the Settings screen. * Probably some other fixes I forgot to write down. Best regards, Harri

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Working with other applications
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 1, 2026

Feb. 1, 2026

Hi, If you are are an existing MBraille user, do you regularly use other applications from MBraille, like fantastical, notemaster, drafts, blindsquare, ... ? I'm just wondering what to keep and what to cut. Best regards, Harri

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v0.9.4 Dutch support, Android fixes
by Harri Pasanen Feb. 1, 2026

Feb. 1, 2026

# Version 0.9.4 Fixes: * On Android, if the MBraille Accessibility service was not already running, going to braille editor with TalkBack on would throw up a dialog advicing to turn on the accessibility service. But as it happened, that dialog was not accessible, and resulted in much confusion, effectively blocking any action. Now the dialog is accessible, and is show already at MBraille startup. * Dutch braille was basically unusable. I created a new liblouis table for Dutch to fix this. (submitted upstream https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis/pull/1915 if someone is curious). So welcome Dutch users. Best regards, Harri

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