[BRLTTY] New Android apk.
Dave Mielke
dave at mielke.cc
Wed Mar 21 19:20:43 EDT 2018
A new apk has been released for brltty on Android. I'd appreciate it if those
who use brltty on Android would update to it and let me know what problems they
encounter. Among other things, it includes the following:
Your braille deivce will be found even if a specific device hasn't been added
and selected. It'll be found somewhat slower, since brltty needs to search for
it, so adding and then selecting it is still worth doing given that that means
immediate connection. What it does mean, however, is that, even though
connection is slower, it's much easier to establish initial braille access.
Note that, for Bluetooth devices, pairing is still necessary.
There's a new general setting checkbox named Release Braille Device. If you
check it then brltty won't keep looking for your device (e.g. if it's turned
off, out of range, etc). You may wish to use this setting, for example, when
going out without wanting to also take your braille device with you.
There's now a status bar item for brltty that let's you know if your braille
device is in one of the following states:
1) connected (brltty is actively communicating with it)
2) waiting (brltty is looking for it and hasn't found it yet)
3) released (you've checked Release Braille Device)
If you open the Notifications shade then you'll find a brltty notification
which contains the current status (see above), the name of the currently
selected braille device (or a note saying that no device has been selected),
and a hint letting you know that tapping the notification will take you to
brltty's Settings screen.
Your Android device is no longer subject to timing out and locking due to
inactivity while you're navigating one of brltty's virtual screens (help, the
menu, etc).
If your Android device is running 5.0 (Lollipop) or later then the button on
the right at the bottom of the screen now says Overview (instead of the older
Recent Apps).
Checkboxes now have a table-independent representation. The old representation
was table-dependent - an uppercase X (for ehecked) or a space (for unchecked)
between square brackets. The new representation is three braille characters
which have been designed to actually look more like an actual checkbox:
1) dots 123478 (a symbol depicting the left side of the box)
2) either a space (for unchecked) or dots 2356 (for checked)
3) dots 145678 (a symbol depicting the right side of the box)
In braille, they look like this:
⣏ ⣹ unchecked
⣏⠶⣹ checked
Switches now have their own representation and, therefore, can be distinguished
from checkboxes. They, too, are three braille characters:
1) dots 4568 (depicting the left side of the switch)
2) dots 1478 (depicting the top and bottom of the switch)
3) dots 1237 (depicting the right side of the switch)
The state of the switch is shown by adding dots 36 (for off) or dots 25 (for
on) to the middle character. In braille, they look like this:
⢸⣭⡇ off
⢸⣛⡇ on
Brltty now follows TalkBack gestures (actually, Explore by Touch gestrues) that
change the screen focus more meaningfully. The braille sometimes used to show
the widget type of a container. Now it shows the text that labels the
container.
Brltty is now more sensitive to developer-provided descriptions for images.
This, too, means that meaningful text, rather than widget types, are shown in
more cases.
The states of checkbox selectors within brltty's Settings screens are now
shown.
If your Android device is running 5.0 (Lollipop) or later then textual
descriptions (rather than hexadecimal vendor and product identifiers) are shown
when adding a USB device. This, of course, makes searching for the desired USB
device much easier.
Brltty no longer crashes if your Android device doesn't support Bluetooth or if
you've turned Bluetooth off. This, of course, only actually matters when adding
or trying to use a Bluetooth device.
--
I believe the Bible to be the very Word of God: http://Mielke.cc/bible/
Dave Mielke | 2213 Fox Crescent | WebHome: http://Mielke.cc/
EMail: Dave at Mielke.cc | Ottawa, Ontario | Twitter: @Dave_Mielke
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Canada K2A 1H7 |
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