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refine when accessibility signals play in code editor #204257

@ramoncorominas

Description

@ramoncorominas

Type: Bug

I'm grouping together in this single issue several issues related to audio cues and accessibility-related text notifications in the editor. This is because they appear to be closely related and likely share a common cause. It is suspected that the triggering mechanism for both the audio cue and the text alert is the same, leading to the observed problematic behavior.

In the Visual Studio Code editor, there are issues related to the audio cues that have been present in previous versions. Additionally, with the introduction of accessibility-related text notifications in v1.86, new problems have arisen. These notifications, intended for screen reader users, are triggered when the cursor encounters lines with errors, warnings, breakpoints, etc. The issues with these features are as follows:

  1. Both the audio cues and accessibility-related text notifications are triggered whenever the cursor moves within the line, such as when using Control+left/right to navigate to the previous/next word. This is particularly disruptive for the text notifications, as the repeated reading of the word "error", "warning", etc., often interrupts the normal verbalization of the screen reader. It would be more effective if these cues and notifications were only triggered when moving to a different line.

  2. There appears to be a slight delay before the accessibility-related notification is announced. If the user moves too quickly between lines, the notification is not read in sync with the corresponding line, or sometimes it is read multiple times. It would be more efficient if the notification for a line was cancelled when the user moves to another line, ensuring it is always synchronized with the appropriate line.

An advanced approach could be to have different audio cues for line-specific errors/warnings/breakpoints and "inline" errors/warnings/breakpoints. One suggestion would be to use the same sound but with different pitches for these two types of cues. This would not be necessary for certain audio cues that are only line-specific (such as folded code) or triggered by specific events (such as task audio cues).

VS Code version: Code 1.86.0 (0504748, 2024-01-31T10:28:19.990Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045
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accessibilityKeyboard, mouse, ARIA, vision, screen readers (non-specific) issuesfeature-requestRequest for new features or functionalityinsiders-releasedPatch has been released in VS Code Insidersverification-neededVerification of issue is requestedverifiedVerification succeeded

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