Prevent voice over (Accessibility) from announcing UITableViewCell as selected

Question

When a UITableViewCell is selected, voice over announces "selected", I don't want voice over to say "selected". How can i achieve this ?

Things I have tried with no success:

Changed the cell accessibilityHint and accessibilityLabel
Changed the cell selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone
changed the cell accessibilityTraits = UIAccessibilityTraitButton

Question:

I don't want voice over to say "selected" when a cell is selected. How can i achieve this ?

I don't want voice over to say "selected" when a cell is selected — user1046037, Dec 03 '14 at 12:12

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 21 '18 at 19:33

I asked this as a code level support issue from Apple and got the following solution which works perfectly. Use a custom subclass of UITableViewCell where you override accessibilityTraits as in the following example:

class NoTraitCell: UITableViewCell {
    override var accessibilityTraits: UIAccessibilityTraits {
        get {
            return UIAccessibilityTraitNone
        }
        set {}
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '16 at 07:34

0

You could try by deselecting the cell again:

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath 
{
 [tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];
}

answered Sep 26 '16 at 07:34

Sam92

45
4

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 16 '17 at 23:27

0

You can create custom cell class and override accessibilityTraits like this:

- (UIAccessibilityTraits)accessibilityTraits {
     return UIAccessibilityTraitButton;
}

edited Nov 16 '17 at 23:27

jbouaziz

1,484
1
12
24

answered Nov 16 '17 at 18:56

me11

1

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 16 '18 at 05:40

If you don't intend to use the selection feature of the tableview then don't use tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath). I know I've always used this as a "didTapOnRowAt" method, but a better way is to use willSelectRowAt:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> IndexPath? {
    // code for when a row is tapped
    return nil
}

The return nil means the cell won't actually be selected.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 03 '19 at 15:48

0

What worked for me was to set the cell's accessibilityLabel to " " (empty string doesn't work) on didSelectRow(), trigger a reload, then reset accessibilityLabel on next dequeue.

answered Apr 03 '19 at 15:48

0xWood

1,326
12
15

score -1 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 19 '18 at 05:43

You can use accessibilityElementsHidden property for disabling voice accessibility.

If you don't want to hear a view in voice-over mode set the accessibilityElementsHidden property to true for that particular view(documentation)

In your case, for a UITableViewCell you can set it as true in tableView(_:cellForRowAt:) method

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    // write code to create cell ....
    cell.accessibilityElementsHidden = true
    return cell
}

Note: You can also set the property in awakeFromNib() method for a custom class table view cell.

I want VoiceOver to read the text in the cell, but not to announce "Selected", which annoys users. — Melodius, Mar 19 '18 at 10:43

score -3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 03 '14 at 13:12

-3

The only work around is prevent cell selection

- (NSIndexPath *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath;
{
    return nil;
}

Add a Tap gesture on the cell and when the cell is tapped, do the what ever you want in cell selection inside the tap gesture.

answered Dec 03 '14 at 13:12

user1046037

16,755
12
92
138

The proper way to solve this is to create a custom UITableViewCell and override its accessibilityTraits var as I have posted in my answer. – Melodius Mar 21 '18 at 19:38

Prevent voice over (Accessibility) from announcing UITableViewCell as selected

7 Answers7