How to use Marula with a keyboard, a screen reader, and themes#

Audience: both — technicians and admins share the same surfaces, and every control described here works the same on either side.

Marula is built to be usable without a mouse. You can run a ticket from the keyboard end to end, hear what changes through a screen reader, and pick a theme that you can actually read. This page covers all three.

Keyboard#

Two shortcuts answer most questions:

• Alt (hold) shows an overlay listing the shortcuts that work on the surface you are on. Release Alt and it goes away. Nothing moves and nothing steals focus while it is up.
• ? (Shift and the question-mark key) opens the full shortcut cheat sheet, grouped by scope: what works everywhere, what works on tickets, and so on. Escape closes it.

A few more worth memorising: Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac) opens search from anywhere, Alt+X closes the cheat sheet from the keyboard alone, and the shortcut profile on Settings → Shortcuts can turn groups off if a chord fights your muscle memory. Turning shortcuts off never hides their documentation; the cheat sheet stays reachable with the all off profile.

Every dialog traps focus while it is open and hands it back to the button you came from when it closes. Escape closes any of them. If you tab past the top of the page, a "Skip to main content" link appears; it jumps straight past the navigation rail and header.

Screen reader#

Async changes are announced, so you do not have to hunt for them:

• Assistant answers on the agent panel read out their first line when the reply lands, not every token while it streams.
• Decision suggestions say how many are waiting when the card loads.
• The settings save bar confirms "Saved." out loud, and a failed save is announced assertively so it is not missed.

Dialogs are marked modal, so screen readers announce them as such and keep reading order inside them. Form errors are wired to their fields, and icon-only controls carry text labels the reader speaks. Loading surfaces that take a while show what they are doing, and that status text is readable too.

Themes#

Settings → Appearance holds the theme presets (Marula neutral, Marula Warm, or High contrast), each available in light and dark mode. You can also choose your preferred layout density (Comfortable, Compact, or Dense). Every built-in preset passes WCAG AA contrast (4.5:1 for text, checked automatically in CI), so pick the combination that reads best for your eyes. Admins can set a default theme preset for the whole organization from the same page, while your personal override always takes priority for your account.

If you need maximum legibility, switch to the High contrast preset. Custom theme packs uploaded by an admin are checked against the same contrast floors before they can be installed.

If something is in the way#

• A color pair that is hard to read: switch presets first. If the problem survives on High contrast, it is a bug worth reporting.
• A control you cannot reach by keyboard: press ? to check whether a chord exists for it, then report the surface if none does.
• Motion that bothers you: the app honors your system "reduce motion" setting. Entrance animations collapse to plain fades under it.