I'm developing an iOS app that I'd like to make fully accessible. Part of the app involves a sequence when playing cards are dealt, and then after user interaction, the hand ends and the next hand is dealt. When the hand has been dealt, I want to make impaired users aware.
So, after the hand is dealt (a sighted user sees the cards animate into place), I send a UIAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification notification like so:
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification, nil);
When I verify in the Simulator using the Accessibility Inspector, everything looks fine: the notification is displayed. But, when I try to test using VoiceOver on a device, nothing seems to be happening. Is there something I'm missing here? How do I know that it works?
I believe that my thinking of how Voiceover works was a bit off. It seems like the UIAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification isn't something to notify the user, it's to notify UIKit that voiceover elements have changed.
I wound up using a combination of sound effects and strategic use of the UIAccessibilityAnnouncementNotification notification to speak updates to the user.
Instead of using nil use a string. VoiceOver will use that string for speech.
Related
is it possible to prevent the app from closing when my app asks for a fingerprint and the user presses the home button instead of only let the finger rest? I know and understand that it shouldn't be possible everywhere else, but it would be nice if the app wouldn't close when asking for the fingerprint.
It is not ever possible to change regular system behaviour, even though some users might press too hard and go back home that is the behaviour that everyone expects, want to go home, press the home button and it always works
This is not possible, what you are trying to do is getting out of the scope of your application and change the behavior of the device. Apple won't allow it, ever.
They might change the behavior if they think it's better to handle it like that, you can send them a message. But they'll probably never do that as they are killing Touch ID for the sake of Face ID.
I want to have some information drop down from the top of a view, stay on the screen for a second or two, and then go back up out of the view. I have search for displaying notifications and/or banners. All I get is either push notifications (which I don't need to use) or iAds banners.
I'm working on a barcode scanning app and I want to briefly show the value of the barcode shown without requiring the user to tap on anything. How can I accomplish this?
Don't use notifications and banners, because that might not work: the user can turn them off. In any case this is not a notification of anything, so it's a misuse of notifications.
Just do what you described, yourself: animate a view onto the screen, and then (in the animation's completion handler) use delayed performance to animate the view right back off the screen after a short delay.
You should use a view which manages its own state (INCOMING, STAY PUT, OUTGOING). This way you can reduce the memory footprint and many other bugs in the process. I coded something for a similar process. Check it out
I have an app where on start it checks the user's position and then get the weather for that spot. Mainly wind direction and speed.
It does the normal check to see it it has Intenet connection, but I found that if there is connection, but very slow the app freezes on launch screen (doing the check on startup).
I have a class that does this, which is called at startup after which a home screen is loaded.looking around, GCD seems the right way to go, but can I get the answer to be displayed in a label in the home screen when it is finished with getting the data? Main tread would have left, or rather bypassed that class and have arrived at the main screen.
Would I need to maybe use something like Notification Centre to help the label updating and re-load?
Thanks for any thoughts or code snippets.
Jorgen
PS. I am trying to keep the app iOS 5.1 to keep old iPads happy.
GCD seems the right way to go, but can I get the answer to be displayed in a label in the home screen when it is finished with getting the data? Main tread would have left, or rather bypassed that class and have arrived at the main screen. Would I need to maybe use something like Notification Centre to help the label updating and re-load?
Yes, I think you're on a very good track here. Let's keep the two issues separate, though:
After doing your background work, still in GCD, you're going to come back onto the main thread because you now want to update the interface. That's easy and straightforward.
If you have a communication problem, a notification can be an excellent solution. You can broadcast the need to update that label, and if the correct view controller exists and is listening, it will get that information.
Having said that, though, you should think about your architecture, since there may be a better way than a notification. Once you are back on the main thread, why are you not in a place where you have a way to know whether the correct view controller exist and to talk to it directly. I'm not saying the notification is bad/wrong! I've used this solution myself, and a notification is quite a standard way to come back from, say, an NSOperation. I'm just saying, give it a little thought.
Nuance's DragonMobile component apparently turns off VoiceOver announcements between the initial call to SKRecognizer's initWithType:detection:language:delegate and the component's call to recognizerDidFinishRecording:. It makes some sense that they do this, since they don't want the VoiceOver announcements to be picked up by the mic and transcribed.
The problem is that there's usually a 1-2 second gap between the initialization of the recognizer and the initial call to recognizerDidBeginRecording:. In order to prevent the user's first few words from getting cut out of the transcription, it's necessary to use recognizerDidBeginRecording: to indicate to the user that they should start speaking (i.e. you can't just have them hit the mic button and start speaking immediately).
My problem is that since DragonMobile turns off VoiceOver as soon as initWithType: is called, I have no way of indicating to a VoiceOver user that they should begin talking at the appropriate time.
Found something of a workaround: DragonMobile allows you to specify SKEarcons, which are audio files that play whenever recording is started, stopped or canceled. I'm going to record VoiceOver making the announcements that I need and then use these recordings as the earcons, so that it will sound like the rest of VoiceOver.
According to a Nuance technical rep I just spoke to, DragonMobile does indeed take over the audio layer and suppress any output during recording, and they don't expose any way around this other than the earcons.
I'm making a game where a player reacts to sounds via motion - seeing as the visual element isn't needed to play it, and many play with their eyes closed, it seems a shame to not be fully VoiceOver compatible. I'm currently using Cocos2D-iPhone and CocosDenshion for audio, and am now starting to think about how I'll be building my menu system to choose levels and configure controls.
Is it reasonably easy to support VoiceOver in Cocos2D's menu system, or should I look in to trying to create my menus in UIKit which I have no experience using?
I don't know if Cocos' menu system supports VoiceOver, but if it doesn't, you could probably add the functionality you're looking for yourself without having to delve into a lot of UIKit work. All you need to do is create a UIView subclass which gets added to your main window when your app starts up. Then use the UIAccessibilityContainer protocol and UIAccessibilityPostNotification calls to allow users to interact with your game via VoiceOver.
The UIAccessibilityContainer protocol lets you inform VoiceOver what interface elements are currently on the screen, their labels, their traits, etc. VoiceOver then uses this information to let users swipe between elements and get feedback on them.
When your game changes state, you can change what that protocol sends back and then issue a
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityLayoutChangedNotification, nil)
...to inform VoiceOver that the screen layout has changed. And to just speak something via VoiceOver, say when your game state has changed, you can send a different notification to speak some text:
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityAnnouncementNotification, #"Achievement unlocked!");
No need to go with UIKit framework you can go with the cocos2d native methods and class to implement this.
For sound option we have SimpleAudioEngine Which can be used. you can distinguish between sound using its ID which is of type ALuint.
ALuint soundEffectID;
//to start
soundEffectID=[[SimpleAudioEngine sharedEngine] playEffect:#"my sound"];
//to stop
[[SimpleAudioEngine sharedEngine] stopEffect:soundEffectID];
You have to mange these effect and I think your problem will be solved.