A big thank you! - accessibility for blind users from fresh install

shuteye

Hi all - I wanted to reach out and express my heart-felt thanks to the GOS dev team for:

Creating "graphene OS speech services", this TTS is super high quality, and more importantly, has the coveted "Direct Boot" feature which enables blind folks like myself to enter our pins when our devices reboot :)
including "talkback" screen reader as part of the default Graphene install image, enabling folks to hold down the volume keys after the device has booted to enable screen reader support and go through the initial setup wizzard. (before this, we had to get sighted help to set up our phones which could have security implications)

Thank you thank you thank you for finding ways to allow for accessibility in a security-conscious way, so that people with disabilities can also preserve their freedom and data autonomy and are not forced to use the mainstream just because it provides access.

tango

That's superb news. They really are the best!

Raj

That Was Heart Touching!

shuteye

Raj I know right? I've been a happy GOs user since 2022, but today was the first time I was able to independently set up a device from scratch, ironically for a new GOs user in my family :) If I can make a suggestion though, adding a sentence or two in the web installer would go a long way towards helping folks enable the accessibility options they need during device setup. e.g.

"if you need the contents of your screen spoken, hold down the two volume keys on your device simultaneously until a vibration is felt and the device starts speaking. If you need other accessibility options like larger text, tap the "accessibility" button on the initial setup screen to get started configuring the options you need."

Johnnyloans

shuteye
adding a sentence or two in the web installer would go a long way towards helping folks enable the accessibility options they need during device setup. e.g.

"if you need the contents of your screen spoken, hold down the two volume keys on your device simultaneously until a vibration is felt and the device starts speaking. If you need other accessibility options like larger text, tap the "accessibility" button on the initial setup screen to get started configuring the options you need."

Great suggestion thanks!

@other8026

Probably add this tip to the command-line installer too?

wizoatk

Issues and pull requests against grapheneos.org is a more direct way of updating install instructions than pinging mods.

Issues: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/grapheneos.org/issues
existing code: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/grapheneos.org/tree/main/static/install

de0u

shuteye Johnnyloans wizoatk

I have filed grapheneos.org issue #1573, including the suggested text. Interested parties can subscribe to the issue, and can use the reaction emoji, but in general should not post comments to the issue thread. My naive estimate would be that a change like this could be two weeks, or two months. Posting "Is there any update?", etc., would almost certainly be counterproductive.

Symbian

shuteye I have questions about this! Is it as simple as flashing (even with the web page) you then just start the TalkBack as usual and you get voice assistant like it happens in standard Pixel installation? Another question I have is, what if you choose another language? Will I loose the voice or no? Will it speak with English or will choose my preferred language? Is usually better to install it in English and then change language and install other TTS software? I'm also a blind guy who want to try GrapheneOS. My phone is a Pixel 9A, currently I have standard Android 17. Thanks for the reply!

userofgos

Symbian Will it speak with English or will choose my preferred language?

US English is the only supported language currently, and there are plans to add others. So, if you want to have TTS in another language, then you will have to install other TTS software.

I've added a few quotes below from the official thread announcing the feature which goes into detail about it's current abilities: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/35722-initial-release-of-grapheneos-speech-services-for-text-to-speech

GrapheneOS It currently has a single voice for US English. If you have the system language set to anything other than English (United States), then you need to change Settings > System > Language & region > Speech > Text-to-speech output > Language to English (United States) from Use system language for now.

GrapheneOS We also plan to make voices for other languages too.

The second most used language by GrapheneOS users is very likely German and then likely French. UK English would likely be much easier to add than those due to shared code and data sources so we may do that first but German will likely be next if we can find high quality open data to use for it.

GrapheneOS

shuteye Edited your post to say "Direct Boot" as you intended instead of "fastboot" to avoid other people getting confused.

Symbian

Hi guys! I installed GOS on my Pixel 9A and I'm quite happy! The reasons are that GOS is the first (or the second if we consider Android Gingerbread inside Android emulator) that don't have Youtube/Gmail/similar software! Another interesting thing is that I use apps like native file explorer. It just work, is simple and accessible, and in GOS I don't need to worry about being tracked. Same with launcher, I used to love AOSP bassed launchers, so now I don't need third party launchers at all! What I don't like about GOS is that Google Camera guided frame option doesn't seems to work as well as in stock Pixel Android. Can someone help and test that feature? Also let me know if there is another camera with that feature, as a blind I love to take some selfies in certain places. Or let me know if you discover some component that will actually improve that function in Google Camera and if it requires Google Play. Don't need specifically the Pixel Camera, just a Camera where guided frame will work out of the box! Another thing that is a bit annoying is that actions in launcher don't work. To test that, activate talkback, open the launcher, then swipe left to right or right to left through apps. There is a point where talkback speaks something like screen 2 of 2 or screen 1 of 2. There you can swipe up or down and Talkback will speak launcher actions. Double pressing (talkback gesture to activate something) will trigger a message telling action not supported, and this is happening with every action. I need to trigger the actions using other techniques to open these menus! Can you please fix that? On other AOSP bassed launchers like Lawnchair this never happened, and since I discovered GOS I want to avoid some third party apps whenever they have native Android/GOS equivalent! Last things is that due to some weird reasons the phone sometimes get a bit warm even though I'm not doing intensive tasks. But the battery last very long because of the lack of Google Play (I have them only in private space). Another thing is that battery charge limit setting doesn't seems to work, but this will require more testing. Anyways, thanks for replying! Any suggestion to improve my GOS experience will be greatly appreciated.

de0u

Symbian Another thing that is a bit annoying is that actions in launcher don't work. To test that, activate talkback, open the launcher, then swipe left to right or right to left through apps. There is a point where talkback speaks something like screen 2 of 2 or screen 1 of 2. There you can swipe up or down and Talkback will speak launcher actions. Double pressing (talkback gesture to activate something) will trigger a message telling action not supported, and this is happening with every action. I need to trigger the actions using other techniques to open these menus! Can you please fix that? On other AOSP bassed launchers like Lawnchair this never happened, and since I discovered GOS I want to avoid some third party apps whenever they have native Android/GOS equivalent!

I'm not 100% sure I understand what the correct behavior is, and the behavior you're observing, but it sounds as if it might be productive to file an issue on the GrapheneOS issue tracker. It would be best to provide a numbered list of the actions taken and the results observed, and then to point out which step(s) produce unwanted outcomes. It could also be useful to go through the same steps using the stock OS, or using a different launcher. Creating a secondary user profile, installing Lawnchair, doing the test, and then deleting the secondary profile probably would be pretty safe.

If you don't have and don't/can't have a GitHub profile, you can post material on the forum and I can file an issue. I recommend starting a new thread, with a topic like "TalkBack doesn't announce some launcher actions" (or something like that). I would suggest the "General" tag (and I would suggest against the "Development" tag).