I'm trying to make macOS VoiceOver read some in text in the parent tabview when the child tabview changes tabs. VoiceOver always reads the first text entry in the child sub tab ignoring attempts to switch where the focus is.
I've tried these things, in the example textItem is a member of the parent tabview class:
<parent tabview>.setAccessibilityApplicationFocusedUIElement(textItem) <textItem>.setAccessibilityFocused(true)
Each sub tab is a view controller loaded from a storyboard and I've added code in viewDidAppear to set the accessibility focus. I've also tried using a notification to the parent tab view to set the accessibility focus at the end of the sub tab's viewDidAppear.
Nothing seems to work, is there way to actually change the current focused accessibility UI element programmatically? This needs to work on macOS 13 and greater.
Here is a rough layout of what I'm trying to accomplish. When the use selects "sub tab 2", I want the text "Text to read first" to be the focus and have VoiceOver read that. What really happens is VoiceOver reads the contents of the sub tab "Feature Name"