In native code, there is no way to determine unset selected vs selected: false

[chiaramooney]

Description

From the JS, the developer has the choice to specify the accessibilityState prop. Then, they can specify any subset of 'busy', 'expanded', 'selected', 'disabled', and 'checked'.

In the JS `selected' can be undefined or a boolean value. However, once the data is passed to the native code, accessibilityState->selected always takes a boolean value. There is no way to determine in the native code if the user has not set the 'selected' state (i.e. the control does not have selectable behavior) or if they have set 'selected' to false (i.e. the control does have selectable behavior but it is not selected)

Could we change the 'selected' value in the accessibilityState to be an std::optional, so the 'undefined' state of selected could be preserved on the native side? This change is needed to implement correct accessibility behavior on Windows.

Steps to reproduce

Set a control to have accessibilityState={{}} and accessibilityState={{selected: false}}. Both show the same data for props->accessibilityState

React Native Version

nightly

Affected Platforms

Other (please specify)

Output of npx react-native info

N/A

Stacktrace or Logs

N/A

Reproducer

https://snack.expo.dev/5HM2iIVtfaUY5z1FeHDgm

Screenshots and Videos

No response

[react-native-bot]

⚠️	Missing Reproducible Example
ℹ️	We could not detect a reproducible example in your issue report. Please provide either: If your bug is UI related: a Snack If your bug is build/update related: use our Reproducer Template. A reproducer needs to be in a GitHub repository under your username.

[react-native-bot]

⚠️	Missing Reproducible Example
ℹ️	We could not detect a reproducible example in your issue report. Please provide either: If your bug is UI related: a Snack If your bug is build/update related: use our Reproducer Template

[chiaramooney]

⚠️ Missing Reproducible Example
ℹ️ We could not detect a reproducible example in your issue report. Please provide either:

• If your bug is UI related: a Snack
• If your bug is build/update related: use our Reproducer Template

https://snack.expo.dev/5HM2iIVtfaUY5z1FeHDgm

[shubhamguptadream11]

@chiaramooney Is this issue happening only on Windows? Or is it consistent across platforms?

[chiaramooney]

@shubhamguptadream11 Consistent across platforms!

[dnhan1707]

Hi @chiaramooney , I'm would love to tackle this issue.
I already took a look at the code base and found that changing the type of selected to be std::optional with default is std::nullopt should be an easy fix.
However, what come to my mind is having another attribute to it called selectable with boolean type, but that will be more work to do. Let me know what do you think?

[chiaramooney]

Great thank you!

The first option you presented of moving the type to be std::optional would be great. This way selected follows the same behavior convention as expanded.