Announcements
October 2023 Release
2023-10-18
Support for WCAG 2.2, axe DevTools Mobile now only scans visible views, Associated Text rule for iOS promoted out of experimental status
WCAG 2.2 was officially released on October 5. Our "Touch Target Spacing" rule has been promoted out of Experimental status. This rule conforms to WCAG 2.2 2.5.8 AA and ensures targets meet a minimum size or have sufficient spacing around them. This is important for people with physical impairments who cannot click small buttons that are close together. Learn more about the WCAG 2.2. release. View documentation for the Touch Target Spacing rule for iOS and the Touch Target Spacing rule for Android.
Axe DevTools Mobile will now run faster and improve accessibility results by only scanning views that are visible to the user at the time of the scan. Previously, the tool scanned all views, even those which were off-screen or hidden by other views. By only scanning what's visible to the user, the results more accurately reflect the user experience of someone with a disability or someone using assistive technology. Also, computer vision rules, such as color contrast, do not run on views which are offscreen. By only scanning views within the bounds of the screen, you can rest assured that any scanned views are benefiting from the full ruleset. Read the release notes for more information about what this means for your team.
The Associated Text rule has been promoted out of experimental status. This rule ensures that a control gets its accessible name from a nearby label available for assistive technologies such as VoiceOver and Voice Control.
Check out the release notes for the full details of this release.
August 2023 Release
2023-08-16
Introducing axe DevTools Mobile Analyzer, Supports Dynamic Type Rule added for XCUI, and UI Automator support added for Android!
Use the new axe DevTools Mobile Analyzer to test iOS or Android apps built with any technology without access to the source code. Test both native and cross-platform apps, such as SwiftUI and UIKit in iOS, Jetpack Compose and XML in Android, React Native, Flutter, Xamarin and Ionic. axe DevTools Mobile Analyzer replaces the embedded Floating Action Button for user-initiated (manual) accessibility testing. To make the switch, remove the embedded code for the Floating Action Button from your app, and follow the docs to get started with the new axe DevTools Mobile Analyzer.
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Views built with SwiftUI can now be tested via user-initiated (manual) testing. (Previously only automated testing was available for SwiftUI.)
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Apps using Jetpack Compose views will now run the full rule set via either user-initiated (manual) or automated testing. (Previously Android apps using Jetpack Compose had a smaller ruleset.)
The Supports Dynamic Type rule is now available in the XCUI framework.
We now support the UI Automator testing framework for automated testing on Android.
Check out the release notes for the full details of all the great updates.
April 2023 Release
2023-04-19
React Native and Tablet Support, Pagination, WCAG 2.2 Target Size Rule!
React Native support is here! With automated accessibility testing support in the iOS and Android frameworks, and support within the free axe Accessibility Linter VSCode extension and axe DevTools Linter (formally known as the axe Linter Server)! These two tools go hand in hand, so your team can catch accessibility bugs as early in the development process as possible for React Native apps. With WCAG 2.2 on the horizon, we have implemented rules on both iOS and Android to test for the proposed Level AA success criterion 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum). For more information on the requirements that the Touch Target Spacing rules test for, please see the remediation guides for iOS and Android.
The axe DevTools Mobile Dashboard now supports pagination for faster load times and easier management of scans. We are committed to continually improving the user experience and appreciate all the feedback to make our product better with each release.
Additional axe DevTools Mobile Updates:
axeDevToolsUIKit
- iPadOS Support
- Colliding View Rule updated to use a trained computer vision algorithm
- Ability to set the scan name while saving locally
- Login Screen API allows connection to a private instance
- The scan's URL is printed to the logs upon successful upload to the server
axeDevToolsXCUI
- iPadOS Support
- an optimized automation build
- Color Contrast Rule
- Screen Orientation Rule
- Ability to set the scan name while saving locally
- The scan's URL is printed to the logs upon successful upload to the server
axe-devtools-android
- Color Contrast Rule updated to use a trained computer vision algorithm
- Compose Button Rule (previously Compose Icon Button Name and Compose Text Button Name)
- Added optimized automation build features: add custom rules and scan dialogs
- Compose support for Ignore Rules
- New API to reset ignored rules for both XML and Compose
Check out the release notes for the full details of all the great updates.
February 2023 Release
2023-02-16
Usage Service, Android Dialog Scanning, Vision Color Contrast & Analytics!
axe DevTools Mobile is launching Usage Service support allowing you to track tool adoption. Check out the guides to get started with Usage Service on iOS or Android.
We've also included analytics to help us build a better product. The implementation of these analytics adheres to the Deque Privacy Policy, personally identifiable information will not be collected, and the data is anonymized.
axe DevTools for Android now supports scanning dialogs of XML layouts in both manual and automated tests.
axe DevTools UIKit for iOS now uses Apple's Vision API to better detect text, and images of text, for the Color Contrast algorithm to enhance the accuracy of results.
Check out the release notes for the full details of all the great updates.
November 2022 Release
2022-11-17
Experimental rules, a login screen, and an optimized automation build!
The axe DevTools Mobile team is excited to announce some new features. Experimental rules introduce a new concept that provides rule results as beta until they can be better refined. A new login screen in both iOS and Android frameworks allows an end-user to log in to the framework and run scans with their user in manual testing mode. Lastly, we're also launching an optimized automation build for iOS and Android which will not require authentication or other network requests (only available in Artifactory).
There are also new rules launching on iOS and Android as well as some great bug fixes. Check out the release notes for the full details of all the exciting updates.
Android Security Patch & Dashboard Improvements
2022-08-31
axe DevTools Mobile 0.25.2 and Android library 2.2.0 is now available!
The Android team released 2.2.0 which brings custom rule support for Compose layouts, a disconnect API to reset the network connection as needed, and a security patch by updating RetroFit from version 2.4.0 to 2.9.0.
The axe DevTools Dashboard team released 0.25.2 bringing some design and layout updates, as well as some bug fixes.
Android & iOS Minor Release
2022-07-25
Launching new rules on iOS and improvements on Android
For iOS and Android frameworks, we've reviewed the impact levels and WCAG success criteria for each rule. You may see slight changes in reporting results through the number of critical, serious, etc issues that have been identified. Impact levels for each rule are now documented for iOS and Android rules.
axe DevTools for iOS is releasing axeDevToolsUIKit 3.1.0 with two new rules: Screen Title and Screen Orientation. axeDevToolsXCUI 2.1.0 will launch with the Screen Title rule. Minimum Xcode support for both frameworks has been bumped up to Xcode 12.5.1.
axe DevTools for Android 2.1.1 is releasing the capabilities to delete a scan for Compose views, a fix for connecting to the framework from Java, and improvements to the ActiveViewName rule. Due to false positives in Android's Inactive Accessible View rule, results will be automatically marked as "IGNORED". They can still be viewed using the Issue Status dropdown in the dashboard. We are actively working to reduce false positives generated by this rule and will reinstate it in a future release.
Android Library Minor Release
2022-07-05
axe DevTools Android v2.1.0 is now available
This release adds APIs for feature parity with iOS including ignoring a rule completely and deleting a scan. It also fixes a bug with setting the scan name.
Due to false positives in the Hidden Active View Focus and Hidden Informative View Focus, results from these rules will be automatically marked as "IGNORED". They can still be viewed using the Issue Status dropdown in the dashboard. We are actively working to reduce false positives generated by these rules and will reinstate them in a future release.
Authentication Server Shutdown
2022-06-27
Deprecated authentication server to be shut down 07/01/2022
Anyone using axe DevTools Mobile since the August 2021 release will be unaffected by the shutdown of the previously used authentication server on July 1st, 2022. The product migrated to Deque's Single Sign-On system with the August 2021 release. For specific component versions, please see the release notes.
June 2022 Release
2022-06-06
Launching an API refresh, features and rule support.
axe DevTools Mobile is excited to announce the release of axe-devtools-android v2.0.1, axeDevToolsUIKit (formally Attest-iOS) v3.0.0, and axeDevToolsXCUI v2.0.0.
Release highlights:
Including a rebrand, we've rehauled the API in each framework for a more intuitive and user-friendly interface.
In addition to username/password authentication, API Key support has launched for a more seamless team or CI/CD integration.
The Android library and axeDevToolsUIKit framework on iOS have improved Color Contrast detection.
Sample applications for iOS and Android are now available publicly.
Frameworks are now available publicly via Maven Central and Swift Package Manager for all Deque Customers and free trial members.
iOS now offers two new rules: Inaccessible Action in axeDevToolsUIKit and Meaningful Accessible Name available in both frameworks.
A new documentation site is now publicly available at docs.deque.com. Every page was updated and reorganized to offer the utmost clarity in exploring all axe DevTools Mobile offers. Documentation for previous versions will remain available at mobile-docs.deque.com for a limited time.
Check out the release notes for more details on these significant updates.