Touch exploration is a feature in Chrome OS and Android where touches are reinterpreted as hovvers. We do this as an accessibility affordance. When a blind user touches the screen, they are able to explore what is under their finger. Accessibility services outputs feedback through tts or braille when the finger moves over objects.
In Chrome OS, ChromeVox supports touch exploration natively. In Android, Talkback and the Android frameowrk supports touch exploration.
In order for touch explore to work in ARC++, Chrome OS needs to pass through all gestures and turn off its touch exploration support. However, with the new support for ARC++ accessibility native to Chrome OS, ChromeVox will have to also support touch explore within ARC++ apps.
The proposal is to add a new window property that will be set by ArcAccessibilityHelperBridge. AAHB knows which aura windows contain ARC++ apps and furthermore, which of those apps are supposed to be used with Talkback and which are supposed to be used with ChromeVox / Chrome OS accessibility services.
This new property, touch exploration pass through, will mark a window as either
- true for touch exploration pass through. This is when Android contorls touch explore.
- false (default) for touch exploration pass through. This is where Chrome OS controls touch exploration.
Comment 1 by bugdroid1@chromium.org
, Sep 20 2017