892945 - Improve the way TalkBack interacts with the text input widget on web pages

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: Widget: Android, defect)

Description

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

STR:
1. With TalkBack on, open any web page that has an input @type="text".
2. Highlight, then double-tap that input to set focus to it and make the keyboard appear.
3. Start typing characters and listen to what TalkBack reads.

Expected: TalkBack should speak each key touched, and upon lifting the finger, echo that character once it appears in the field.
Actual: TalkBack speaks the key touched, but upon lifting the finger, reads all previous characters, accompanied by the announcement "deleted". Sometimes, it also only announces the second to last character as being "deleted". In fact, the characters are not being deleted at all, but are all still in place.

This very confusing announcement also happens in password fields and gives a totally wrong impression to the blind user of what is happening inside that field.

Comment 1

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

This is not an AccessFu issue?

Comment 2

[Max Li [:maxli]]

(In reply to Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay] from comment #1)
> This is not an AccessFu issue?

Given that this seems to manifest under the same conditions as bug 899633, it's probably not. (It may or may not be the same issue as 899633.) I don't know if this is the right component though.

Comment 3

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

This is still a problem in current Firefox for Android. When typing in a text field on the web, no matter which type, all the previously entered text gets read as "deleted" and then as reinserted by TalkBack.
In other text fields in Android, reading is smooth, with no extra verbiage.
Anything we can do to improve this situation?

Comment 4

[Lucas Rocha (:lucasr)]

jchen will probably have better insights around the interaction between IME, web input entries, and a11y.

Comment 5

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

This is fixable. I'll be filing follow-up bugs.

Comment 6

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

(In reply to Jim Chen [:jchen :nchen] from comment #5)
> This is fixable. I'll be filing follow-up bugs.

Cool! Please CC me on these follow-ups! :)

Comment 7

[Max Li [:maxli]]

This doesn't appear to happen anymore.

Comment 8

[Erik Rahm]

(In reply to Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons] from comment #5)
> This is fixable. I'll be filing follow-up bugs.

I believe this bug has reappeared, currently reproducible in android v6.0.1 FF v46.0.1 using TalkBack v4.5

(I've only been able to reproduce it in password input fields)

Comment 9

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

Jim, any ideas? See comment #8 above.

Comment 10

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

On my Nexus 5X, I see the behavior that when a key is entered in a password field, that key is read, then when the character turns into a dot in the password field, "(key) deleted" is read. The previously entered keys are not read.

I think this may be due to a change in the Gecko accessibility back-end, specifically the way Gecko notifies TalkBack of text changes in a password field.