Accessibility system should report the currently focused element when focus changes

Originator:jszumski
Number:rdar://19580081 Date Originated:1/23/15
Status:Closed Resolved:Yes
Product:iOS Product Version:8.1.2
Classification:Enhancement Reproducible:N/A
 
Summary:
There is no way to easily determine which accessibility element is currently focused by VoiceOver.  While you can traverse the entire view hierarchy and test accessibilityElementIsFocused, the app won't know when to do this logic because it doesn't know when focus changes.

Steps to Reproduce:
N/A

Expected Results:
VoiceOver should do two things to help identify the currently focused element:

1. Post a notification when focus changes to a new element (i.e., UIAccessibilityFocusChangedNotification with the new id<UIAccessibility> instance in the userInfo dictionary)
2. Provide a global function that returns a pointer to the currently focused element or add it as a property to UIWindow.

Actual Results:
There is no API to determine the currently focused element across an entire view hierarchy or determine when that focus changes.

Version:
iOS 8.1.2 (12B440)

Comments

Fixed in 9.0

UIAccessibilityElementFocusedNotification

By jszumski at June 12, 2015, 6:52 p.m. (reply...)

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