Reading text from (Facebook) RecyclerView with AccessibilityService

Question

How can I see the text of non-focused RecyclerView children (items)?

My accessibility service is supposed to read out text from the screen which contains keywords. This works well in most situations, except where I am dealing with RecyclerViews, especially those in the Facebook application.

Both Facebook feed and comments screens are based on RecyclerView and neither seem to provide me with access to the text I need from their accessibility events.

What I've tried:

public void onAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent event) {

    //I've tried looping through event.getText() and it does not contain the text entries

    //I've also tried the following (with various null checks)
    AccessibilityRecordCompat record = AccessibilityEventCompat.asRecord(event);
    AccessibilityNodeInfoCompat source = record.getSource();
    List<AccessibilityNodeInfoCompat> nodes = source.findAccessibilityNodeInfosByText("...");
    //(and loop through the entries)

    //I've also tried limiting to the class name "android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView"
    //and looking at parcelableData

    //In the facebook app, the following is always null too
    source.findFocus(AccessibilityNodeInfoCompat.FOCUS_ACCESSIBILITY);

}

Nowhere seems to contain the data I need. As an example when opening a comments screen/overlay from a post, I can see all text content EXCEPT the comments themselves (which are inside the recycler view)

Logs of the event details that I can see:

Here is what I see for the comments overlay on a post with a single comment

Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: 100; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: true; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: 13; ToIndex: 24; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_STATE_CHANGED;   PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: X.BGT; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: true; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: 1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: 0; ToIndex: 0; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.view.ViewGroup; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.widget.FrameLayout; Text: []; ContentDescription: Photo; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.widget.FrameLayout; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.widget.ImageButton; Text: []; ContentDescription: Stickers; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: false; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.widget.FrameLayout; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED; PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: android.widget.TextView; Text: []; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: false; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0
Event: EventType: TYPE_WINDOW_STATE_CHANGED;   PackageName: com.facebook.katana; MovementGranularity: 0; Action: 0 [ ClassName: X.BGT; Text: [Be the first to like this., Like Button, Photo Comment, Write a comment…, Open GIF search, Stickers]; ContentDescription: null; ItemCount: -1; CurrentItemIndex: -1; IsEnabled: true; IsPassword: false; IsChecked: false; IsFullScreen: true; Scrollable: false; BeforeText: null; FromIndex: -1; ToIndex: -1; ScrollX: -1; ScrollY: -1; MaxScrollX: -1; MaxScrollY: -1; AddedCount: -1; RemovedCount: -1; ParcelableData: null ]; recordCount: 0

I've also tried exploring the children of the source, but only ViewGroups are presented (no Views) and always with text null

Ancestor for 0 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a418a; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 1056, 236); boundsInScreen: Rect(12, 244 - 1068, 480); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: false; longClickable: false; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a3647; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 1056, 236); boundsInScreen: Rect(12, 244 - 1068, 480); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: false; longClickable: true; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_LONG_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0, 0 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a3a08; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 828, 58); boundsInScreen: Rect(204, 262 - 1032, 320); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: true; longClickable: true; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_LONG_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0, 0, 0 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a454b; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 268, 58); boundsInScreen: Rect(204, 262 - 472, 320); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: true; longClickable: false; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0, 1 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a3dc9; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 828, 48); boundsInScreen: Rect(204, 320 - 1032, 368); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: true; longClickable: true; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_LONG_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0, 2 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a490c; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 828, 80); boundsInScreen: Rect(204, 382 - 1032, 462); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: false; longClickable: false; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0, 2, 0 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a4ccd; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 93, 44); boundsInScreen: Rect(507, 394 - 600, 438); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: true; longClickable: false; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]
Ancestor for 0, 0, 2, 1 = android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo@800a508e; boundsInParent: Rect(0, 0 - 114, 44); boundsInScreen: Rect(632, 394 - 746, 438); packageName: com.facebook.katana; className: android.view.ViewGroup; text: null; error: null; maxTextLength: -1; contentDescription: null; viewIdResName: null; checkable: false; checked: false; focusable: false; focused: false; selected: false; clickable: true; longClickable: false; contextClickable: false; enabled: true; password: false; scrollable: false; actions: [AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SELECT - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_CLICK - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS - null, AccessibilityAction: ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN - null]

I am not sure if this is definitely possible or I may be taking completely the wrong approach. I noticed in TalkBack mode the user must click on / focus the individual elements of a RecyclerView child before they are read, which is not an option for my service (which is supposed to find those items of interest)

Answer 1

I have faced the problem with nested scroll views, solved with finding all views recursively, I think, you have already tried this. Here is the solution works in my case, You can try it may work for you also.

private AccessibilityNodeInfo accessbiltyContent(AccessibilityNodeInfo parentView,String strAddress) throws Exception {

    int childCount = parentView.getChildCount();


    for (int i = 0; i < childCount; ++i) {
        AccessibilityNodeInfo child = parentView.getChild(i);
        // child=null;
        if (child != null) {

            String strToAddress=strAddress+" > "+child.getClassName().toString();
            String nodeText="";

            if(child.getText() != null)
                nodeText=child.getText().toString();


            Log.v(TAG,"values =" +child.getClassName().toString(),nodeText,strToAddress));
            accessbiltyContent(child,strToAddress);

        }
        else {
            return null;
        }
    }

    return null;


}

It will traverse all views in parent and prints them to find.