Voiceover support for accessibility

[ara4n]

https://twitter.com/mohaneds/status/985245745107226624?s=21

[MarcoZehe]

I am also a VoiceOver user affected by the lack of support, and am experienced in providing advice for implementation if you get stuck. Ping me if you need anything! :)

[ara4n]

we don’t have bandwidth in the core team to add voiceover support atm, sadly - it will likely have to come from the community as a contribution.

[manuroe]

We have a PR for this on Android at https://github.com/vector-im/riot-android/pull/1762.

[MarcoZehe]

I‘m afraid there‘s some misunderstanding here. What this bug is talking about is the accessibility feature VoiceOver in iOS, that allows a blind person to access the touch screen without actually activating items initially, and having items read to them. The Android equivalent is called TalkBack. What that other issue does is add a voice messaging feature. That‘s something completely different.

[ara4n]

@manuroe is this closed by https://github.com/vector-im/riot-ios/pull/1906?

[aaronraimist]

@ara4n no.

@mrkiko:matrix.org on things that can be improved:

As an example, it seems VoiceOver is not able to “detect” screen updates correctly on rooms windows like this one, I am not able thus, to read all the messages in there. Double tapping on people or room names in the home screen does not work (nothing happens), it is difficult and something not possible to dismiss the keyboard (so submitting a bug report is not easy when VoiceOver is active), read receipts infos not accessible. And some buttons in private chat windows are not labeled. This is meant only to be a technical answer

Pulled out into individual changes:

• [ ] VoiceOver is not able to “detect” screen updates correctly on rooms windows, I am not able to read all the messages in Riot iOS room (and others presumably)
• [ ] Double tapping on people or room names in the home screen does not work (nothing happens) #1433
• [ ] it is difficult and sometimes not possible to dismiss the keyboard (so submitting a bug report is not easy when VoiceOver is active)
• [ ] read receipts not accessible
• [ ] some buttons in private chat windows are not labeled

Things I found: Home screen:

• [ ] Search doesn't seem to work on home screen (I found this but maybe I am using VoiceOver incorrectly)
• [ ] Not possible to create or join a new room using the big + button

Room view:

• [ ] Voice over should probably start at the most recent message or at least the most recent message that hasn't been read instead of the most distant message that has been loaded
• [ ] Message detail buttons are not well labeled, ex share button is called "Room VC event menu alert action share button"
• [ ] Text field to send a message is totally unlabeled, no way to tell if the message you are sending is encrypted or not
• [ ] Photo uploading doesn't work at all, the native picker in iMessage is great
• [ ] WOW "viewing" photos in iMessage is great, can we tap in to the native support for detecting what is in a photo
• [ ] Easy to get stuck in the photo gallery viewer, I couldn't find a way to get out

List of rooms view:

• [ ] Room divider should probably say the number of rooms first, example: "75 rooms" not "rooms 75"

E2E:

• [ ] not possible to re-request encryption keys
• [ ] E2E device verification SUCKS for blind users. I'm hoping something with the QR codes will be an improvement but right now it tries to pronounce the device ID and then reads the device key super quickly so there is no way a blind user could verify devices.
• [ ] E2E can't type in the "confirm passphrase" field without specifically tapping on it

[mrkiko]

@aaronraimist I can confirm searching doesn't work as, at least I, expect when in Home. I am here, and I am also at full disposal. BTW - if needed I can apply to TestFlighty if I amasked to.

[aaronraimist]

@mrkiko Yeah it would probably be good if you did so you could test the changes as they are made. You can join the beta at this link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/lCeTuDKM