Is it possible to programmatically determine whether or not a composable is being focused for talkba...

# compose

[Lucas Kivi]

Is it possible to programmatically determine whether or not a composable is being focused for talkback announcement? And then to intercept the “next” gesture that would move the focus to the next composable.

[Albert Chang]

Apply Modifier.clearAndSetSemantics {} on the element that you don't want TalkBack to announce.

[Lucas Kivi]

Ya well the issue is more complex than that. I want it announced.

[Albert Chang]

If an element has semantics and you aren't clearing it manually, it will be announced.

[Lucas Kivi]

I agree with that. My issue is quite complicated. The item is an expandable list. When the user gets to the bottom to the last item that is visible in the “collapsed” version, I want the “next” action to expand the list rather than scroll it.

[zsperske]

Compose 1.5 (still in beta) introduces a traversalIndex field in the Modifier.semantics block. Maybe you can add some conditional logic to that modifier that will alter the focus order based on the index of the item in the list & the collapsed state. not sure how you’ll trigger the expand though

[zsperske]

Maybe you can combine it with the onFocusChanged (if that triggers when talkback changes focus, I’m not sure)

[Lucas Kivi]

I am deep in that beta haha. The traversal happens correctly I just want the expansion and there are no callbacks that I have found that work… onFocusChanged is only updated when you focus on a component like a text entry, and not when it is focused for talkback but when it is focused for typing.

[Lucas Kivi]

I have a work around but it is quite indirect.

[Lucas Kivi]

It would be nice if we could tell if talkback was enabled…

[Lucas Kivi]

or to know what is being focused…

[zsperske]

there is a way to tell if talkback is enabled:

fun Context.getEnabledAccessibilityServices(): List<AccessibilityServiceInfo> {
  val accessibilityManager: AccessibilityManager =
    getSystemService(Context.ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE) as AccessibilityManager
  return accessibilityManager.getEnabledAccessibilityServiceList(AccessibilityServiceInfo.FEEDBACK_ALL_MASK)
}

[Lucas Kivi]

Right ya, thank you!

[Utkarsh Tiwari]

Hi @Lucas Kivi, do you mind sharing the workaround to detect if a composable is being focused by the talkback?

[Lucas Kivi]

It is impossible.. for my solution I did some crap with listening to the LazyListState. You can upvote this post if you so desire.
https://stackoverflow.com/q/76461364/12385518

[Utkarsh Tiwari]

I upvoted but I don't think it's gonna +1 because my new profile doesn't have enough reputation on StackOverflow.

I filed these two ticket in Google Compose team's bug tracker. I'd appreciate if you could vote. If those tickets have enough votes, they might consider it.

https://issuetracker.google.com/u/1/issues/305580465
https://issuetracker.google.com/u/1/issues/252992211