iOS change accessibility focus.

Question

is there a way to set the accessibility focus programatically (App Store-safe)? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This is the Swift code:

UIAccessibility.post(notification: .screenChanged, argument: <theView>)

Example usage

let titleLabel = UILabel()

override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewDidAppear(animated)
        UIAccessibility.post(notification: .screenChanged, argument: titleLabel)
}

Answer 2

To focus on element you can call.

Swift:

UIAccessibility.post(notification: .screenChanged, argument: self.myFirstView)

ObjC:

UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityScreenChangedNotification, self.myFirstView);

Otherwise for iOS 8+ use the accessibilityElements to set element order and it will focus automatically on first element in the list

self.accessibilityElements = @[myFirstView, mySecondButton, myThirdLabel]

Answer 3

extension UIAccessibility {
    static func setFocusTo(_ object: Any?) {
        if UIAccessibility.isVoiceOverRunning {
            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.8) {
                UIAccessibility.post(notification: .layoutChanged, argument: object)
            }
        }
    }
}

Add this extension and call it by passing in the view you would like to be focused. If you would like to change focus when navigating using a tabbar, you can call this from viewWillAppear. This code wont work in any init method without a the delay of 0.7 or more.