angelo on write.as

A new patch update for WriteFreely is available on the App Store today.

Beyond the usual “bug fixes and performance improvements” (see the release notes here), this release fixes a few issues for our VoiceOver users. Specifically, I fixed an oversight of mine where icon-only buttons —and there are a few in the app— didn't have descriptive labels attached.

Thankfully, because we use Apple's SF Symbols, iOS naturally picks up a relevant label for VoiceOver in many cases (like “Compose”). However, that default should be overridden using the .accessibilityLabel() modifier in SwiftUI to better fit the context when necessary, which revealed a bug in the SDK: accessibility modifiers applied to buttons in a toolbar are ignored by SwiftUI.

In discussing this on Twitter, Marc Palmer found a workaround to apply to the label: parameter of the button:

ZStack {
    Image("does.not.exist")
        .accessibilityHidden(true)
    Image(systemName: "square.and.pencil")
        .accessibilityHidden(true)
        .imageScale(.large)
}

In doing this, we can now apply .accessibilityLabel() and .accessibilityHint() modifiers to the button itself.

Up next: completing work on WriteFreely for Mac (currently in beta!) is the focus now, and then tackling some work for v1.1 of both the iOS and Mac apps.

As always, if you're bumping into any trouble using the app, please let us know in the support forum!

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