Add accessibility label to touchbar buttons

[christopherpross]

Hey,
the buttons in VSCode are not labeled for VoiceOver, because this buttons use only icons. I understand, that icons are better as text labels. I searched in the code of electron, whether we can easily use a accessibilityLabel, that VoiceOver can read out. This has the advantage that the design of the Touch Bar-elements haven't to change, only a attribute have to add.
I found out, that electron don't offer a accessibilityLabel for Touch Bar-controls, so I opened a issue.
here is the issue fixed, very fast. :-)
So, electron offers now an AccessibilityLabel for Touchbar-controls.
Hopefully this feature can be merged in VSCode.
When this is not possible, in the next time, a work-around can be, to use text labels, if the accessibility mode is turned on.
What do you think?

best regards,
Christopher

[bpasero]

Sounds good. It will probably be another 3-6 months before we go with a newer Electron version (>6) so we need to wait for that.

//cc @deepak1556

[Det87]

What's the Roadmap on updating Electrons? I just received my first 1.45 nightly, but it's still not got even Electron 8 (stable since 2 months ago: https://www.electronjs.org/releases/stable?page=2), and judging by the VSC release history (https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/releases), Electron 9 could still even make it to stable before the final 1.45 is out (https://www.electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/electron-timelines).

[bpasero]

@christopherpross unfortunately I do not see support for an accessibility label in the touchbar classes we use in VSCode: TouchBarSegmentedControl has an array of SegmentedControlSegment which do not provide any accessibility label:

Maybe you could ask for support in Electron repo.

[christopherpross]

Hm, so here is the issue I had created for this:
electron/electron#20443

and this is the pr which resolves my issue, there is also a small description how it is now resolved:
electron/electron#20454

I hope it helps.

all the best,
Christopher

[bpasero]

@christopherpross I am aware of the issue and the change, but VSCode is not using TouchBarButton or TouchBarLabel for the touchbar support. We need this API on the level of TouchBarSegmentedControl.

[isidorn]

Touchbar is going away on latest macs. thus closing as out of scope

[VSCodeTriageBot]

We closed this issue because we don't plan to address it in the foreseeable future. If you disagree and feel that this issue is crucial: we are happy to listen and to reconsider.

If you wonder what we are up to, please see our roadmap and issue reporting guidelines.

Thanks for your understanding, and happy coding!