[DTB-Talk] Bardmobile on Android: Web view getting stuck

Rasmussen, Lloyd lras at loc.gov
Tue Jun 25 14:02:06 UTC 2019


Using a web browser, go to the BARD webpage and to "update account settings." Go to "maximum number of books to be displayed on one page" and set it to 25 or 50. You probably have it set a lot higher, which makes sense if you're using a PC.
This gets the amount of data down to an amount that is more easily handled by the current implementation of Android web view and TalkBack. The Android web view is a part of Chrome, and I don't think it can be changed to something else, even if you use a different browser for your normal browsing on your Android device. 
We are planning to move away from the "browse BARD" implementation, bypassing the web view problem, in future versions of BARD Mobile, but this isn't going to happen very quickly.

Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20542   202-707-0535
http://www.loc.gov/nls/
The preceding opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress, NLS.

-----Original Message-----
From: DTB-Talk <dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Christopher Gilland via DTB-Talk
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2019 10:22 PM
To: DTB-Talk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Christopher Gilland <clgilland07 at gmail.com>
Subject: [DTB-Talk] Bardmobile on Android: Web view getting stuck

Using a Pixel 3 XL and Android 9.0 Pie, most recent build of BardMobile, Talkback 7.3.

I'm finding that if I try browsing the Bard website through the internal browser included within the app, Talkback is getting severely stuck if I search for something via key word which has a lot of results. By stuck, I more specifically mean it gets very unresponsive.

This isn't seeming to occur with other web views within Android, generally speaking, which leads me to think it's probably something to do with the actual webview used internally embedded within the BardMobile app.

I know this has been an issue for quite some time, if you don't have much on the screen within the app, you're fine, but as soon as you do, good luck!

Here's a practical example which 100% consistently produces the problem. 
Go to the most recently added section. That's literally all it takes. 
Then, start either trying to flick through the page, or using touch exploration. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but it takes approximately
15 seconds after moving from one item to another for Talkback to catch up, and read the currently focused item.

I've tried this on multiple different Android devices, so therefore can confirm beyond a doubt that this is not Pixel 3 XL specific.

I don't experience this issue with iOS.

This is pretty much one of the very few reasons I refuse to switch primarily to using Android. If it wasn't for this one thing along with a few other minor things which would be totally OT for this list, therefore I won't go into that here, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

Any ideas what could be possibly causing this with the web views seeming so broken within the app?

Chris.




More information about the DTB-Talk mailing list