Add Accessibility View and Accessibility Help Menu for Copilot Inline Suggestions

[isidorn]

Testing #186214

If you already have an issue for future plans feel free to close this one.
I think the Copilot Inline (Ghost Text) Suggestions could also profit from the Accessibility View. Currently users are depending on the Copilot View on the side which might get deprecated in the future. And I think we need a native solution for this, so IntelliCode also profits.
I am not sure how exactly to integrate this with the Inline Suggestion Hover.

A potential start would be. Whenever there is an Inline Suggestion, we play an audio cue (as we do today), and a user can open Accessibility View to inspect the exact suggestion.

fyi @hediet

[meganrogge]

We should also have a help menu for this to cover the actions that can be taken as reported here

#188252

[meganrogge]

Ok so my thought here is when we alert with the inline suggestion, we'll append to that "Use alt+f1 to open accessibility help". There, we'll describe how to disable the hint, how to navigate bw previous and next suggestions, mention the audio cue, and how to open it in the accessible view.

The accessible view action will need a special context key like lineHasGhostText. Not sure if such a thing exists currently.

[meganrogge]

@rperez030 and @jooyoungseo I'm questioning if this is actually needed because the inline suggestion tends to be pretty short. Lmk what you think.

[rperez030]

I'm questioning if this is actually needed because the inline suggestion tends to be pretty short. Lmk what you think.

I think there is a use case for it, but I'm not certain that accessibility view is the best answer. Let's say I have the announcements of inline suggestions turned off because I cannot deal with a screen reader suggesting things every five seconds. That is true in my case. I will hear the audio cue indicating that there is an inline suggestion. I will often ignore it, but I may occasionally want to know what it contains. Ideally, I would press a keystroke to hear the audio cue, and possibly press Tab to accept. The problem with using accessibility view for this is that it will drag my focus into a separate widget from which I cannot accept the inline suggestion, so it completely defeats the purpose of an inline suggestion. My ideal solution would send an alert to the screen reader without moving my focus away from the editor. I also understand that, when an inline suggestion appears, it is possible to use Alt + left and right brackets to select between suggestions. That needs to be made accessible also, but in a way that doesn't make it less efficient to use.

[meganrogge]

it will drag my focus into a separate widget from which I cannot accept the inline suggestion.

Oh, @rperez030 funny you should say this - we will soon have actions in the accessible view so that you don't have to go back to accept it. Just merged this into main for notifications.

My ideal solution would send an alert to the screen reader without moving my focus away from the editor.
Isn't that what would happen currently if you were to enable that audio cue?

I also understand that, when an inline suggestion appears, it is possible to use Alt + left and right brackets to select between suggestions. That needs to be made accessible also, but in a way that doesn't make it less efficient to use.

This should be accessible at the moment. You should hear each suggestion as it comes in. I doubt this is tied to the audio cue being enabled, but maybe so if you're not hearing the announcement?

IMO, we need a way to communicate how to trigger this suggestion and how to navigate between them. We have a hover for that right now, but one cannot tab between its elements (since tab accepts the suggestion). We should fix that. cc @hediet

[meganrogge]

@hediet I think we should be locking the hover's focus so the user can tab between the elements in this hover.

[rperez030]

Oh, @rperez030 funny you should say this - we will soon have actions in the accessible view so that you don't have to go back to accept it. Just merged this into main for notifications.

I love when people think ahead of me :).

My ideal solution would send an alert to the screen reader without moving my focus away from the editor.

Isn't that what would happen currently if you were to enable that audio cue?

Yes, but the audio cue along doesn't tell me what the suggestion is, and I don't have a quick way to find out that doesn't drag focus away from the editor.

I also understand that, when an inline suggestion appears, it is possible to use Alt + left and right brackets to select between suggestions. That needs to be made accessible also, but in a way that doesn't make it less efficient to use.

IMO, we need a way to communicate how to trigger this suggestion and how to navigate between them. We have a hover for that right now, but one cannot tab between its elements (since tab accepts the suggestion). We should fix that. cc @hediet

If Tab can be used to navigate within the hover, what would I do to accept the suggestion?

[meganrogge]

If Tab can be used to navigate within the hover, what would I do to accept the suggestion?

You'd press escape from the hover and tab to accept the suggestion.