Is there a way to click a hyperlink in the a dialog using an AccessibilityService?

permission prompt image

I am trying to use Accessibility to click "Allow in settings" using my application's Accessibility Service. I have looked at the AccessibilityNode, and I do not see anything that's interactable in the TextView. Here is the output from the node:

Event Type: TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED com.google.android.permissioncontroller android.widget.FrameLayout
 Source: 
0 | class name: android.widget.FrameLayout text: null content description: null input type 0 actions: ACTION_SELECT, ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION, ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS, ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN  
1 | class name: android.widget.ScrollView text: null content description: null input type 0 actions: ACTION_FOCUS, ACTION_SELECT, ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION, ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS, ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN  
2 | class name: android.widget.TextView text: Change location access for AppName? content description: null input type 0 actions: ACTION_SELECT, ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION, ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS, ACTION_NEXT_AT_MOVEMENT_GRANULARITY, ACTION_PREVIOUS_AT_MOVEMENT_GRANULARITY, ACTION_SET_SELECTION, ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN  
2 | class name: android.widget.TextView text: This app wants to access your location all the time, even when you’re not using the app. Allow in settings. content description: null input type 0 actions: ACTION_FOCUS, ACTION_SELECT, ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION, ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS, ACTION_NEXT_AT_MOVEMENT_GRANULARITY, ACTION_PREVIOUS_AT_MOVEMENT_GRANULARITY, ACTION_SET_SELECTION, ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN  
2 | class name: android.widget.Button text: Keep “While the app is in use” content description: null input type 0 actions: ACTION_FOCUS, ACTION_SELECT, ACTION_CLEAR_SELECTION, ACTION_CLICK, ACTION_ACCESSIBILITY_FOCUS, ACTION_NEXT_AT_MOVEMENT_GRANULARITY, ACTION_PREVIOUS_AT_MOVEMENT_GRANULARITY, ACTION_SET_SELECTION, ACTION_SHOW_ON_SCREEN 

There are only a handful of available actions for the TextView. I have attempted the available actions to the best of my knowledge with no success.

I have also explored the idea of a direct Intent to the "Allow in Settings" section but at the moment there are none. Our app requires location to be on at all times.

So what I ended up doing was writing a static function for getting spans from a CharSequence

@NonNull
ClickableSpan[] getClickableSpans(CharSequence text) {
    try {
      if (text instanceof Spanned) {
        Spanned spanned = (Spanned) text;
        return spanned.getSpans(0, text.length(), ClickableSpan.class);
      }
    } catch (Exception e) {
    //log exception
    }
    return new ClickableSpan[0];
}

and to use it

public void onAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent) {
    AccessibilityNodeInfo nodeInfo = event.getSource();
    if (nodeInfo != null) {
        List<AccessibilityNodeInfo> nodeInfoList = nodeInfo.findAccessibilityNodeInfosByText(
          "This app wants to access your location all the time, even when you're not using the app. Allow in settings.");
        if (nodeInfoList != null && !nodeInfoList.isEmpty()) {
            ClickableSpan[] spans = getClickableSpans(nodeInfoList.get(0).getText());
            if (spans.length > 0) {
                spans[0].onClick(null);
            }
        }
    }
}

ClickableSpans are passed through to accessibility starting in Android O. You can find the ClickableSpans in the text and call onClick. The system will then make sure the original span's onClick method is called in the app process.

This is back-ported if you use AccessibilityNodeInfoCompat, but the app must also have called ViewCompat#enableAccessibleClickableSpanSupport(view).