Alfred workflow editor inaccessible with VoiceOver

[aaron_h]

Hello,

The Alfred workflow editor is still inaccessible with VoiceOver on Mac OS.

This was my primary reason for purchasing the power pack, so the fact that this makes workflows unusable, as the keywords and hotkeys for them are stripped on import, and I cannot make my own, means I have just wasted my money and will have to look elsewhere.

To reproduce, simply enable VoiceOver, open Alfred preferences, select workflows in the sidebar, select a workflow in the table, and attempt to edit it with VoiceOver keyboard commands.

[Andrew]

@aaron_h I'm constantly making accessibility improvements to the workflow editor, and in the current it should read the contents and selections of the editor.

 

When initially creating the workflow editor a number of years back, I created it as a fully bespoke component. It turns out that this doesn't intrinsically work with the macOS Accessibility APIs, and any accessibility I've added has also had to be fully bespoke. A current limitation is that it is still mouse driven for editing, which I fully appreciate isn't aligned with the needs of VoiceOver users.

 

One big plan I have is to overhaul the editor to contain subview items (instead of simply drawn and rendered items), which will allow for each item to have accessibility context within the macOS Accessibility framework. This overhaul would also include full keyboard navigation for the objects.

 

For now, to get to any hotkey field in Alfred, use the ? command in Alfred's search. For example, open Alfred and type "?workflowname hotkey", if the top item returned isn't the one you want, press the down arrow until it is, then when you action this result, it will open the workflow editor to the specified workflow and pre-select the hotkey object. You can then press return to open the configuration for that object.

 

Note that while testing this, I realise that the VoiceOver for reading the selected hotkey in Alfred's results doesn't also read the workflow name. I'll fix that in the next build.

 

If this doesn't satisfy your needs for now, get in touch on our info@ address and we’ll help you out further.

 

Cheers,

Andrew