Announce when new cursor is added

[isidorn]

Currently multi cursors are not accessible.
For starters we shuold announce whenever a new cursor is added.

@alexdima let me know if you have a good code pointer

[alexdima]

@isidorn there are multiple ways to end up with multiple cursors. Which commands do you have in mind (ctrl+alt+up/down, column selection commands, ctrl+d, ctrl+shift+L)?

[isidorn]

@alexdima I hoped there was a common layer that all these commands used and that we could announce in that layer.
Since I think the experience should be the same, no matter the command.

But if we have to do it on a command layer - then all commands that are keyboard triggered make good sense.

[alexdima]

Here are the actions (their class names). They are living in multicursor.ts:

• InsertCursorAbove
• InsertCursorBelow
• InsertCursorAtEndOfEachLineSelected
• InsertCursorAtEndOfLineSelected
• InsertCursorAtTopOfLineSelected
• AddSelectionToNextFindMatchAction
• AddSelectionToNextFindMatchAction
• MoveSelectionToNextFindMatchAction
• MoveSelectionToPreviousFindMatchAction
• SelectHighlightsAction
• CompatChangeAll

[isidorn]

Thanks!
Assigning to this milestone so I take a look into this.

[isidorn]

I have pushed a change that we announce the cursors added after each of this commands in the format:
Cursor added LINE:COLUMN
If there are multiple cursors added we announce
Cursor added LINE_1:COLUMN_1, LINE_2:COLUMN_2... LINE_N:COLUMN_N

Once additional cursors are removed via escape I announce
Removed secondary cursors

@alexdima if you have time you can take a look at the code changes.
I basically get the cursor state before the operation and after and announce the difference.

I will share this with the community and once they try it out I can hopefully push some additional improvements.

fyi @SaschaCowley @webczat

[isidorn]

Let's keep this issue open for additional feedback

[SamKacer]

Haven't tried this feature, but I really love this idea. I was thinking something like this should exist for a long time, since very often I would accidently add multi cursors without knowing and end up messing up a file. sometimes forcing me to revert a large size chunk of work and start over.

another idea I have, but this would probably be more appropriate as a extension than a built-in feature, wuld be to make some kind of inoffensive sound play whenever typing with multiple cursors. this would be analogous to NVDA beeping when typing with shift pressed when capslock is on. just a reminder that multi cursors are there.

[isidorn]

@SamKacer thanks a lot for providing feedback, if you get a chance try it out with VS Code insiders and let us know what you think about the changes we did https://code.visualstudio.com/insiders/

On the vscode side we try to not play any sounds, but to leave this up to the screen reader. So if there is some aria signal to make the screen reader produce a sound we could add it.
Also as you say an extension could tackle this.

[isidorn]

Closing this issue as the initial planned work is done.
Once the community has feedback we can tackle that in separate issues.

Verifier: turn on screen reader, and use some command that adds additional cursors, make sure the screen reader reads the new cursor positions.