LiveText: pumped generator follow-up

[codeofdusk]

Link to issue number:

#20177

Summary of the issue:

After #20177:

• It is impossible to tell whether lines have been skipped during large text floods;
• The new generator behaviour cannot be tuned or disabled if it is problematic for some applications;
• Copyright and attributions were outdated or missing.

Description of how this pull request fixes the issue:

This PR:

• Updates copyright and attribution;
• Adds a "beep for skipped lines" option to terminal programs settings, with tunable hidden frequency and duration settings (similar to progress bars);
• Adds a hidden config setting to change the batch size of new lines sent to speech (setting to 0 disables batching and reverts to the previous behaviour);
• Adds a hidden config setting to change the maximum number of new lines that can be reported at once (set to 0 to revert to the previous uncapped behaviour).

Testing strategy:

Verified that all settings and the beep work as expected. Alpha testing.

Known issues with pull request:

None known

Code Review Checklist:

• Documentation:
  • Change log entry
  • User Documentation
  • Developer / Technical Documentation
  • Context sensitive help for GUI changes
• Testing:
  • Unit tests
  • System (end to end) tests
  • Manual testing
• UX of all users considered:
  • Speech
  • Braille
  • Low Vision
  • Different web browsers
  • Localization in other languages / culture than English
• API is compatible with existing add-ons.
• Security precautions taken.

[codeofdusk]

CC @ethindp, @seanbudd.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Note

Copilot was unable to run its full agentic suite in this review.

Adds a new “Beep for skipped lines” terminal setting and related terminal flood-handling controls, while updating release notes for the live-region freeze fix.

Changes:

• Documented and surfaced a new Advanced setting: “Beep for skipped lines”.
• Added config options to cap/batch reported terminal lines and to configure the skipped-lines beep.
• Updated changelog entry to include additional issue/credit references.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
user_docs/en/userGuide.md	Documents the new “Beep for skipped lines” Advanced setting.
user_docs/en/changes.md	Updates the bug-fix entry with additional references/credits.
source/gui/settingsDialogs.py	Adds the Advanced Settings checkbox, default handling, and persistence.
source/config/configSpec.py	Introduces new [terminals] tuning options (limits, batching, beep params).
source/NVDAObjects/behaviors.py	Implements line dropping, batching, and optional beep when lines are skipped.

[ethindp]

@codeofdusk I like this, fully agree it should be done.

[seanbudd]

Please remove the hidden config options, in favour of constants stored in code

[codeofdusk]

Why? This makes them immutable at runtime.

Might it be better to expose a visible feature flag to control the new behaviour instead?

[seanbudd]

Which need to be exposed?

[codeofdusk]

At minimum, "beep for skipped lines" (already in settings) and a toggle (hidden or user-facing) to switch back to the old behaviour. Right now, maxNewLines of 0 disables the new behaviour and setting different values tunes it.

[seanbudd]

I think exposing maxNewLines is fine, but the rest I think should remain in code and be removed from config

[codeofdusk]

The beep frequency/duration config options are similar to the ones we already have for progress bars (some users with hearing difficulties, for instance, might want different values, or these can be used for testing). Similarly maxNewLines and newLinesBatchSize can be tuned for latency or accuracy in certain terminal apps.

[seanbudd]

Hidden config items such as those are not something we are looking to introduce further

[seanbudd]

Is this something you intend to continue to work on?