Plugin to expand accessibility support in the PhoneGap framework
At the end of March, a plug-in was introduced that expands support for accessibility in the free open source framework from Adobe for creating mobile applications PhoneGap, also known as Apache Callback or Apache Cordova. The framework itself is based on the use of web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) that are processed by the kernel of the operating system browser, so that it allows cross-platform development without the use of native languages. To date, about 20 thousand applications have been developed on PhoneGap.
From the point of view of accessibility for users with disabilities, interfaces developed on PhoneGap already have a certain level of support for accessibility functionality, simply due to the browser engine and its ability to ensure the availability of web documents. If at the same time the hypertext framework was developed with a minimal understanding of accessibility (pictures and graphic buttons with text captions, etc.), then this already provides basic support for special features.
However, the applications on PhoneGap are still not fully integrated with the system in terms of supporting its accessibility functionality. In particular, unlike natively developed applications, they are not able to obtain information that the user has a large font, color inversion or screen reader program, which means that the application on PhoneGap cannot properly adjust to these system settings. This problem is designed to solve Mobile Accessibility plugin, which allows you to get this information, as well as dynamically track changes to these settings, bringing, with proper support from the developer, the user experience of PhoneGap applications to native.
Currently, only Android and iOS are supported by the plugin, since these systems are the most advanced in terms of accessibility tools. However, the accessibility API is also present in the BlackBerry or Windows Phone, so in the future we plan to implement support for these platforms.
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In addition, the Mobile Accessibility plugin is already supported in the PhoneGap Build service, which allows you to download the code and build it for different platforms without installing an SDK. To use it, you only need a free Adobe ID.
The source code of the Mobile Accessibility plugin for PhoneGap, as well as plugin documentation are available on GitHub .
From the point of view of accessibility for users with disabilities, interfaces developed on PhoneGap already have a certain level of support for accessibility functionality, simply due to the browser engine and its ability to ensure the availability of web documents. If at the same time the hypertext framework was developed with a minimal understanding of accessibility (pictures and graphic buttons with text captions, etc.), then this already provides basic support for special features.
However, the applications on PhoneGap are still not fully integrated with the system in terms of supporting its accessibility functionality. In particular, unlike natively developed applications, they are not able to obtain information that the user has a large font, color inversion or screen reader program, which means that the application on PhoneGap cannot properly adjust to these system settings. This problem is designed to solve Mobile Accessibility plugin, which allows you to get this information, as well as dynamically track changes to these settings, bringing, with proper support from the developer, the user experience of PhoneGap applications to native.
Currently, only Android and iOS are supported by the plugin, since these systems are the most advanced in terms of accessibility tools. However, the accessibility API is also present in the BlackBerry or Windows Phone, so in the future we plan to implement support for these platforms.
')
In addition, the Mobile Accessibility plugin is already supported in the PhoneGap Build service, which allows you to download the code and build it for different platforms without installing an SDK. To use it, you only need a free Adobe ID.
The source code of the Mobile Accessibility plugin for PhoneGap, as well as plugin documentation are available on GitHub .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/218865/
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