Android accessibility - is there a way to detect if talk back is reading content description

Question

I've got a ListView that's gets populated with data from the server (phone numbers) and I'm polling every 2 seconds. When TalkBack feature is switched on and the I tap on a list item, the talkBack doesn't get the chance to read the whole string because the refresh occurs and the talkBack starts from the begging. Is there a way to detect if the TalkBack if content description is being read? Thank you.

Answer 1

ListView relies on the value of Adapter.hasStableIds() to determine if inflated views can be reused across data set changes.

If this method returns false , ListView assumes that there is no consistency between the data set before and after a change. As a result, it doesn't know where accessibility focus should be placed.

However, if this method returns true and your adapter maintains a consistent mapping between item ID and data, then ListView is able to maintain accessibility focus on the correct item -- even if it changes position within the data set.

To fix this issue, you can modify your adapter to maintain stable IDs:

class MyAdapter extends ListAdapter {
    ...

    @Override
    public boolean hasStableIds() {
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public long getItemId(int position) {
        // Return a consistent mapping between the item at a given
        // position and an arbitrary (but consistent!) ID associated
        // with that item.
        ...
    }
}