I built a small open-source reading tool for low-vision Mac users — not a screen reader, very early, sharing anyway

Hi all,

I have low vision — enough sight to see the screen, but reading by ear is a lot more comfortable for me. VoiceOver was always more than I needed (and, as plenty of threads here cover, not always in a good way), while the built-in Spoken Content stuff was less than I needed. So, over the past while I built myself something in between. It's called Marduk, it's free and open source, and I'm sharing it in case even one other person finds it useful. Fair warning: this is going to be a long list of caveats with a small tool attached.

What it does: it runs in the background and adds vim-style keyboard modes to the Mac. You select some text, hit a key, and it reads to you. While it reads, it pauses your music or YouTube instead of talking over it, and resumes it after. Space pauses and resumes a long read. It speaks symbols sensibly ("arrow", "not equals"), shortens those giant hex strings ("md5 ending in 2 7 e" instead of thirty-two characters of gibberish), and plays little sounds when you change modes so you always know where you are. If you're a vim person, the h j k l selection stuff will feel like home. If you're not, it will feel like a strange cult, and honestly that's fair.

What it is NOT — please read this part before getting excited or annoyed: it is not a screen reader, and it is not a VoiceOver replacement. There is no braille support, and there isn't going to be — that's far beyond what I'm able to build, and I'd rather be honest about that than pretend otherwise. If you rely on VoiceOver, keep VoiceOver. Marduk is aimed at low-vision folks like me who mostly navigate visually but want reading, and everything around reading, to be effortless and audio-first.

The honesty section: this is an early alpha that has been tested on exactly one computer, which is mine. It needs macOS 26 on Apple Silicon. Some of my design trade-offs will absolutely feel like bugs the first time you hit them.

Why I'm posting: reading this forum's threads about the state of things on the Mac made me feel a lot less alone in wanting something different, so it seemed wrong to keep this to myself. If you try it and it breaks, that's genuinely useful to me — file an issue or reply here. If you look at it and tell me why the whole approach is wrong, that's useful too. I have thick skin and no illusions.

Get it here:
https://ssdollahite.com/marduk

Thanks for reading. Happy to answer anything.