How to create app specific talkback label files for sharing on inclusive android

Submitted by erik-burggraaf on

Introduction

The world may not be quite ready for this tutorial, but I am pretty excited and can't wait to share it with you. Android talkback's export graphics feature doesn't officially support exporting graphic labels for a specific program; however, you can make this happen using a simple text editor. I'm going to show you how to accomplish this, so that inclusive android users can upload graphic labels for specific programs that anyone can download and use. .

To learn the basics of labeling, exporting and importing graphics, please see:

Examining a talkback labels file

From a writing point of view, this is the challenging part. I want to give you enough information to make you feel confident that you can do this, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed. Let's assume that you have successfully exported a talkback labels file according to the tutorials listed above. Now you have a file called Talkback_custom_labels_MMDDYYYY.tbl. MMDDYYYY refers to the date that your talkback labels were exported of course. This is a standard text file that contains some programming code. To edit the file, you can open it in any text editor such as notepad or text edit.

Now you are going to examine and edit that file. In doing so, please remember that each line is separate and distinct, and disarranging the lines will cause the file not to work properly. Make sure that your text editor preserves the line breaks as in the original.

The first line of the file reads like this: {"labels_array":
The left brace opens the function that is based on this array. Then you have "labels_array" in quotes. This shows you that a variable of type array called labels is being created. An array is a type of programming variable that stores a lot of other variables and their types and values for easy use. After the closing quote there' is a colon which signifies that a list is coming. This line needs to be preserved in tact.

The second line of the file reads something like this: [{"package_name":"com.c51","package_signature":"0cc8cabd00f51f7d13f8bf21f2e7a96eaf69d520","view_name":"icon","label_text":"toggle star","locale":"en","package_version":30,"timestamp":1467083805861},
This is a collection of variables and their values. It tells talkback which label belongs to which program. In this case, you can see that my label is for the program checkout 51, and that I assigned the text "toggle star", to that particular label. Notice that the line begins with a left bracket. The left bracket designates the start of the list of variables in your array. So, the second line of your file must open with this left bracket. Finally, the line ends with a right brace and a comma. The right brace closes that entry in the array, and the comma tells us that there is another entry coming up in the array that we should look for. Of course, the text in between the braces on the second line will be different depending on the label you set up.

Now, jump to the very bottom of your talkback labels file and look at the very end of the very last line. The final three characters are: right brace, right bracket and right brace. The first right brace closes the final set of variables. Normally after this we would have a comma, but since this is the final set, we don't need the comma. The right bracket closes the left bracket that we used to begin the second line. it tells the program that our array is closed. The final right brace closes the left brace that is the first character on line one and tells the program to close the function for this array.

Creating your program specific labels file

You can have as many labels for as many programs as you want' however, we want to separate out the labels for one particular program so that we can share it with other users interested in that program.

To begin, make a new text file. Copy the top line of your talkback labels file and press enter. Type a left bracket as shown above. Identify all of the labels associated with a particular program, copy them from your original talkback labels file and paste them, making sure that everything between each set of braces is on one line with no hard returns. Finally, make sure that there is no comma after the final brace and add a right bracket and a right brace. Save your new text file under the name of your program with an extension of .tbl, and you have a program specific graphics label file

Look for the graphic files upload feature. Coming soon to inclusiveandroid.com.

Device compatibility

Works on :

  • Motorola moto G2 marshmellow
  • Report if this works on your device

Works not on:

  • Report if this does not work on your device

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