let's contact developers and see if they can make iOS 7 jb tweaks more accessible

By Jessica Brown, 9 March, 2014

Forum

Accessibility Advocacy

Hi. I have noticed that a lot of the jailbreak tweaks for iOS 7 have parts that are not accessible. If you have one or more jailbreak tweaks that are not working with VoiceOver, I strongly encourage you to email the developer, explain the accessibility problem you are having, tell them you can give them some links to info on how to make apps accessible with VoiceOver if they want it and ask them if they could please try to fix the accessibility problems. If they do say they want the links, there are some links on this site that lead to info on how to program apps for accessibility that you could give them. I also think they are more likely to fix the problems if they here it from more then one person. So if you do email a developer about an accessibility problem, please post the name of the tweak and the problem you are having with it here so other people can also email the developer about it. To email a developer, just open Cydia, search for the package who's developer you want to email, then double tap the name of the developer in the description. In the alert that pops up, there will be 2 or 3 people you can email, so make sure you double tap the correct one, which in this case, is the name of the developer, not Cydia's owner or the package host, which will be the other 2 options. After that, your mail app will open with the email address and subject already filled in. There will also be some text in the email body, don't remove it, just write above it. You can email a developer about a package no matter if you have it installed or not, so if you do not have a package installed or you do not want to install it, but you do want to send an email to the developer, you can still do that. The way to send the email is the same no matter if you have it installed or not. However, if you do have it installed and you do not want to search for it again, you can also get to it by going to the manage tab and selecting packages, then select the package who's developer you want to email and the description page with the developer's name on it will come up. I also might do a podcast on how to email Cydia developers. Now this post is getting kind of long so I will post another post in this thread with the jailbreak tweaks and the problems I am having with them. If you are having problems with jailbreak tweaks, please post them here so we can spread the word. Thank you.

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Comments

inaccessible jailbreak tweaks list

Ok so here I go. In Clever pin, the pickers to pick the start and end time for the passcode to be active are inaccessible. In iFile, you can no longer swipe between files and folders. You have to use explore by touch and when you get to the end of the page, you have to 3 finger swipe to turn the page. You used to be able to swipe which was way faster. I also find that by using explore by touch, I often times miss some files and folders. I never missed anything with swiping. I have emailed the developers of both clever pin and iFile and if you are having any of these problems, you should also email them. Lockdown pro, jelly lock7 and app activate pro all have the same problem which is that the lists of apps and folders do not show up. VoiceOver just says empty list. I have emailed the developers of thoes 3 tweaks as well, but I have also emailed the developer of applist, because I think it might be a problem with applist. If you have problems with any of these tweaks or any other tweak you have in turms of accessibility, please send the developer an email. Thanks for reading.

partial workaround for app activate pro

I found a workaround that partly works for app activate pro. It will let us make actions for apps, but we can not use the feature where we can make actions for folder icons. App activate pro does not work with VoiceOver, but activator does. So what I do now is I set all apps to on in app activate pro settings because the list of apps to pick to make an activator action work with VoiceOver in activator, but they do not work in app activate pro. Also, the app activate pro settings work with VoiceOver, but the lists of apps and folders do not. However, in the activator settings, with all apps turned on in app activate pro, I can go through my apps and pick one to make an action for that way. So right now I can make actions for apps, but not folders. The only way to make actions for app icons is to turn on all apps setting in app activate pro so you can use activator settings to set it up. The list of apps is accessible in activator but not in app activate pro. We can not make actions for folder icons, because there is no way to make the folder icons show up in activator like we can do with the app icons.

more inaccessible tweaks

Power app adds more options to the power down screen. Reeboot, respring and safe mode. But VoiceOver does not pick up these buttons, all it picks up are the default power off and cancel buttons. Assistive is a tweak that adds on-off switches to your screen that you can pick. Wifi, bluetooth and some other stuff, but VoiceOver does not see the buttons and the buttons can not be pressed with VoiceOver on. The settings work so you can configure it, but when you are done configureing it, you can not use it because VoiceOver does not pick up or let you use the buttons.

guest mode

Guest mode also does not work with VoiceOver, because it uses AppList.

AppList

The tweaks that need to show a list of apps and use AppList like JellyLock7 and guest mode do not work with VoiceOver. However, tweaks that need to show a list of apps but do not use AppList like auto app update manager do work with VoiceOver, so I think it is a problem with AppList, not the other tweaks.

AppList

Hi Jessica. Yeah I'm nearly sure the problem with those is with AppList because I've come across some others too. The ones I've noticed it with are AppLocker and TapTodaysCalendar. I emailed the developer of AppList, (Ryan Petrich), months ago but never heard back. I also emailed the developer of TapTodaysCalendar about it and he said he would contact Ryan too, as there was nothing he could do to fix the issue himself. Weirdly the AppList problem doesn't exist in Ryan Petrich's own tweaks, like BioLockdown, which has an accessible list in it's settings. So maybe he has an updated version that he hasn't released to other developers or something. Just a thought. I haven't used GuestMode, but I have used a couple of this developer's other tweaks and been in contact with him. He seems a nice guy and did fix VoiceOver problems, so worth giving him a shout. I've been meaning to email the developers of Auxo 2 and ProWidgets, though I'm not too confident about fixes for them. I will email though. Have you contacted the developer of JellyLock? I remember emailing him last year about the iOS6 version, which was completely invisible to VoiceOver. He was interested but didn't know how to go about making it accessible. From what I've read about the iOS7 version, it sounds like he may have at least tried :)

yes

Yes. I emailed Ryan and also the developers of jely lock and also I emailed the developers of all the other tweaks in this thread that I have said do not work. I do not have guest mode installed but would like to. Before I bought it, I emailed the developer and explained that I use VoiceOver and that AppList does not work with VoiceOver and I asked if guest mode uses AppList. He said it did so I did not buy it yet. I am waiting for an AppList update. Ryan still has not replied to my email.