VoiceOver occasionally doesn't announce typed characters/numbers in input fields

b/174614592

This seems to reproduce with any text field.

Turn on voiceover
Type a few characters
Delete a few back to back
Without waiting for "delete" announcement to finish, type again

Sporadically, you will observe missed announcements for letters. See internal bug for a reproduction of the internal catalog app.

Flutter currently relying on voice over to pronounce focused soft keyboard key repeat user typing, and that seems to be buggy.

The native ios App relies on some internal mechanism to pronounce the change in textfield. It does not seem to be public documented, I will keep digging.

I can't really tell how they decide to pronounce the character. I have asked a question in stackoverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65225792/voiceover-does-not-repeat-typed-character-on-custom-text-view-with-uitextinput

If we can't figure this out, we may be able to use UIAccessibilityAnnouncementNotification to force voice over to announce the typing.

I have the same question.
I tried to add any properties of Textfield() and TextFormField().
But VoiceOver cannot announce characters.

When I tapped a edit box on iOS apps, VoiceOver usually focused the edit box.
But it focus keyboard made by Flutter apps.
I'm thinking at the curse.
But I don't know how to solve it.

Update: We're not sure how to approach this; waiting for feedback from the customer.

@pcsosinski

@pcsosinski says he will reach out to the customer next week.

We had an accessibility review of our prototype app written with flutter (Engine ref 4797b06) and this bug came up. Except that voiceover never announced a single character typed. For user which rely on that feedback the keyboard is unusable in that state.

Not much to find about his bug except this one:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16270243/make-voiceover-announce-typed-deleted-characters-for-uikeyinput

Edit i can't reproduce the problem in another app from us which was build with flutter 1.17(Not sure about that). engine revision for reference: ee76268252c22f5c11e82a7b87423ca3982e51a7

@yasargil

@yasargil thanks that is very helpful, I will look more into it

yes, I can confirm this is a regression, it works correctly before 1.17.0.

@chunhtai

@chunhtai Is it possible to prototype the solution you describe just enough to tell if it would work?

I prototyped it, it doesn't work. The soft keyboard only listens to UIView that implements UITextInput. The last suggestion makes UIAccessibilityElement to implement UITextInput, but the soft keyboard does not seem to respond to it.

At this moment, I don't think there is a correct solution.

The best we can have is

(2) always switch the focus back to FlutterField as soon as the NativeField was focused.

and makes NativeField harder to be reached.

Does moving the native field to the bottom right off-screen not work either?

no, it does not work, it still receives focus in this scenario

Details

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter_driver/flutter_driver.dart';
import 'package:vm_service/vm_service.dart' as vms;

void main() => runApp(MyApp());

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Counter App',
      home: MyHomePage(title: 'Counter App Home Page'),
    );
  }
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
  MyHomePage({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);

  final String title;

  @override
  _MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
  int _counter = 0;

  void _incrementCounter() {
    Navigator.of(context).push(MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_)=>MyHomePage2(title: 'second',) ));
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: Text(widget.title),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: TextField(),
      ),
      floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
        // Provide a Key to this button. This allows finding this
        // specific button inside the test suite, and tapping it.
        key: Key('increment'),
        onPressed: _incrementCounter,
        tooltip: 'Increment',
        child: Icon(Icons.add),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class MyHomePage2 extends StatefulWidget {
  MyHomePage2({Key key, this.title}) : super(key: key);

  final String title;

  @override
  _MyHomePage2State createState() => _MyHomePage2State();
}

class _MyHomePage2State extends State<MyHomePage2> {
  int _counter = 0;

  void _incrementCounter() {
    Navigator.of(context).push(MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_)=>MyHomePage(title: 'second',) ));
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: Text(widget.title),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: TextField(autofocus: true,),
      ),
      floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
        // Provide a Key to this button. This allows finding this
        // specific button inside the test suite, and tapping it.
        key: Key('increment'),
        onPressed: _incrementCounter,
        tooltip: 'Increment',
        child: Icon(Icons.add),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class BackButtonListener extends StatefulWidget {
  final Widget child;
  final Future<bool> Function() onBackPressed;

  const BackButtonListener({
    this.child,
    this.onBackPressed,
  });
  @override
  BackButtonListenerState createState()=>BackButtonListenerState();
}

class BackButtonListenerState extends State<BackButtonListener> {

  BackButtonDispatcher dispatcher;
  @override
  void didChangeDependencies() {
    super.didChangeDependencies();
    if (dispatcher != null) {
      dispatcher.removeCallback(widget.onBackPressed);
    }
    dispatcher = Router.of(context)
        .backButtonDispatcher
        .createChildBackButtonDispatcher();
    dispatcher.addCallback(widget.onBackPressed);
    dispatcher.takePriority();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return widget.child;
  }
}

I am running into this set of problems as well. To me it feels as if the flutter field has the SupportsDirectInteraction trait set. With VoiceOver on, simply touching a text field makes the keyboard come up. Normally, this should only happen with a double tap once the text field has VoiceOver focus (the frame around it). Could that be part of the problem: The Flutter field swallowing gestures it should not?

this issue was present in 1.17 and 1.22 correct?

yes its a regression.

we're not planning to pick this into 1.26, the 1.27 beta release will be branching soon.

This thread has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. If you are still experiencing a similar issue, please open a new bug, including the output of flutter doctor -v and a minimal reproduction of the issue.

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VoiceOver occasionally doesn't announce typed characters/numbers in input fields #71885

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VoiceOver occasionally doesn't announce typed characters/numbers in input fields #71885

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chunhtai commented on Dec 8, 2020

chunhtai commented on Dec 10, 2020

yama3nomori commented on Dec 30, 2020

Hixie commented on Jan 6, 2021

Hixie commented on Jan 13, 2021

yasargil commented on Jan 19, 2021

chunhtai commented on Jan 19, 2021

chunhtai commented on Jan 19, 2021

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Hixie commented on Jan 26, 2021

chunhtai commented on Jan 27, 2021

xster commented on Jan 27, 2021

chunhtai commented on Jan 27, 2021

MarcoZehe commented on Feb 4, 2021

pcsosinski commented on Feb 18, 2021

chunhtai commented on Feb 18, 2021

pcsosinski commented on Feb 24, 2021

github-actions commented on Aug 5, 2021

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