Now You Can Customize Your Android Accessibility Service For KeyPress Event

Content posted here with the permission of the author Shekhar Sahu, who is currently employed at Josh Software. Original post available here.

Accessibility services are a feature of the Android framework designed to provide alternative navigation feedback to the user on behalf of applications installed on Android devices.

It runs in the background and receives callbacks from the system when accessibility event is fired. Of course when accessibility is enabled on the device.

Examples of common accessibility services

• Voice Assistance.
• Switch-Access: Allows Android users with mobility limitations to interact with devices using one or more switches.
• Talkback: A screen reader commonly used by visually impaired or blind users.

Sometimes there are unique requirements. For instance, let’s say, on pressing “Caps Lock” instead of relying on the talkback (that speaks out, “Caps Lock On” & “Caps Lock Off”) we want to play an audio file instead. This is more relevant when the user does not know “English” & hence the default talkback, which is in English is not going to work. The solution is to use an audio file in the localized language.

Creating an accessibility service

We can build our own accessibility service as per application requirements to make it more accessible.

Let’s take an example of Typing Tutor app, where we may need to override hardware keyboard event using accessibility service.

In this example, we are going to override the windows key press event, to start your app’s home menu, instead of device start menu (By default on android it opens Google assistant).

Steps

• To Register your accessibility service, create a service class which receives accessibility events

public class MyAccessibilityService extends AccessibilityService {
...
    @Override
    public void onAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent event) {
         // your code...
    }

    @Override
    public void onInterrupt() {
    }

...
}

• Like any other service, you also have to register it in the manifest file. Remember to specify that it handles the android.accessibility intent, so that the service is called when applications fire an AccessibilityEvent.

<service android:name=".MyAccessibilityService"
android:permission="android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.accessibilityservice.AccessibilityService" />
</intent-filter>
. . .
</service>

Configuration Service

An accessibility service can be configured to receive specific types of accessibility events,  In our case, it should be keyboardEvent. 

We can also add a filter like it can listen only to the specific app (package name), specific time duration, can work only with particular activity etc.

there are two ways to configure service event settings:

1. Via meta-data entry in the manifest file.
2. Programmatically, by calling setServiceInfo(AccessibilityServiceInfo)

Example for XML configuration:

<accessibility-service xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:accessibilityEventTypes="typeAllMask"
    android:accessibilityFeedbackType="feedbackSpoken"
    android:notificationTimeout="0"
    android:canRequestFilterKeyEvents="true"
    android:accessibilityFlags="flagRequestFilterKeyEvents"
    android:description="@string/message_accessibility_service_details"
    android:packageNames="com.test.accessebility" />

Here I used android:canRequestFilterKeyEvents=”true” & android:accessibilityFlag=”flagRequestFilterKeyEvents” to get key events from the system. Also, have to override the onKeyEvent() method inside our service class

@Override
protected boolean onKeyEvent(KeyEvent event) {
    return super.onKeyEvent(event)
}

That’s it. We are done with the service configuration. Don’t forget to add the below permission in your manifest file.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE"/>

Now to get this event to our Activity class, we are going to user local broadcast manager. It’s an android component which allows you to send or receive Android system or application events.

@Override
protected boolean onKeyEvent(KeyEvent event) {

//handle keyevent for widnows key
if((keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_META_LEFT || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_META_RIGHT)) {
       //Send broadcast intent to main activity. 
       //On the main activity you can take any desired action.
    }
    return super.onKeyEvent(event)
}

Then register that local broadcast on your activity class. By this activity will get notified whenever an event occurs. Now you can write your own action on it.

You are done!!