Accessibility set focus to navigation bar title item - ios

Question

Overview:
I would like to set the accessibility focus to the navigation bar's title item.
By default the focus is set from top left, meaning the back button would be on focus.
I would like the title item to be in focus.
Attempts made so far:
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityScreenChangedNotification,
navigationController?.navigationBar.items?.last)
Problem:
The above code makes no difference, the back button is still in focus.
Possible Cause:
Not able to get the item corresponding to the title to be able to set the focus.

Answer 1

Solution 1
I don't like it, but it was the minimum amount of hacking that does not rely on digging through hidden subviews (internal implementation of UINavigationBar view hierarchy).
First in viewWillAppear, I store a backup reference of the back button item,
and then remove the back button item (leftBarButtonItem):
override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated)
backButtonBackup = self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem
self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil
}
Then I restore the back item, but only after I dispatch the screen changed event in viewDidAppear() :
override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewDidAppear(animated)
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityScreenChangedNotification, nil)
DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.1) { [weak self] in
self?.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = self?.backButtonBackup
}
}
Solution 2:
Disable all accessibility on the nav bar and view controller up until viewDidAppear() is finished:
self.navigationController.navigationBar.accessibilityElementsHidden = true
self.view.accessibilityElementsHidden = true
, and then in viewDidAppear manually dispatching the layout element accessibility focused event to the label subview of UINavigationBar:
UIAccessibilityPostNotification( UIAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification, self.navigationController.navigationBar.subviews[2].subviews[1])
// The label buried inside the nav bar. Not tested on all iOS versions.
// Alternately you can go digging for the label by checking class types.
// Then use DispatchAsync, to re-enable accessibility on the view and nav bar again...
I'm not a fan of this method either.
DispatchAsync delay in viewDidAppear seems to be needed in any case - and I think both solutions are still horrible.

Answer 2

I invoked UIAccessibilityScreenChangedNotification on navigation title from viewDidLoad and it worked
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityScreenChangedNotification,
self.navigationItem.title);

Answer 3

First, we'll need to create an useful extension:
extension UIViewController {
func setAccessibilityFocus(in view: UIView) {
UIAccessibility.post(notification: .screenChanged, argument: view)
}
}
Then, we'll be able to set our focus in the navigation bar title like this:
setAccessibilityFocus(in: self.navigationController!.navigationBar.subviews[2].subviews[1])