In VSC 1.40, window titles are missing in accessibility apps

[garyking]

Issue Type: Bug

I use a program called Witch, on my Mac, to navigate between windows. It is useful for jumping to a specific VS Code window. The window's title appears in Witch, which is usually the workspace for that window.

However, since upgrading to VS Code 1.40.0, all window titles only appear as "(Untitled)". Was there a change regarding this recently? Perhaps related to Electron? This issue seems to affect any Mac app that relies on OS accessibility features to access a window's title.

To reproduce this issue, you must be using VSC 1.40, and have at least two windows open in VSC. Their titles will then appear as "(Untitled)" in any of a number of Mac accessibility apps, including Witch. I already tested with all extensions disabled. I tested with latest Insiders as of 2019-11-08. The issue does not exist in VSC 1.39.2.

This setting must be enabled to cause this issue:

"window.newWindowDimensions": "maximized"

I'm on MacOS 10.14.6 (18G1012).

Screenshot:

VS Code version: Code 1.40.0 (86405ea, 2019-11-06T17:09:34.601Z)
OS version: Darwin x64 18.7.0

[bpasero]

@deepak1556 we do give the window a title here:

vscode/src/vs/code/electron-main/window.ts

Line 129 in 15bfc40

title: product.nameLong,

I am not sure why "Untitled" would show up, but possibly a E6 regression in this case.

@garyking do you see the same with other electron app, e.g. try Electron Fiddle: https://electronjs.org/fiddle

[OliverJAsh]

Also seeing the same regression, except I'm using Contexts instead of Witch.

[bpasero]

@OliverJAsh @garyking do you see the same when you run a different Electron application such as Electron Fiddle: https://electronjs.org/fiddle

[OliverJAsh]

The title seems to work with that ("Hello World 2!"):

[antonblock]

Also seeing this with Contexts on MacOS 10.15.1. It began after upgrading to 1.40.0 yesterday.

Version: 1.40.0
Commit: 86405ea23e3937316009fc27c9361deee66ffbf5
Date: 2019-11-06T17:09:34.601Z
Electron: 6.1.2
Chrome: 76.0.3809.146
Node.js: 12.4.0
V8: 7.6.303.31-electron.0
OS: Darwin x64 19.0.0

[ltd]

Also, seeing this with my hammerspoon scripts. began with 1.40.0

[garyking]

In the Mac Accessibility API, Witch retrieves the AXTitle property, which contains the window title. It seems like, in the case of VSC, the AXTitle property is blank. Other Electron apps, including Fiddle and Atom, have a proper AXTitle value for their windows.

I assume that screen readers used by the blind, etc. will also have trouble navigating VSC windows, because of this issue.

[cscalfani]

I'm seeing this in Witch too.

[bpasero]

We do set the title in VSCode in 2 places:

• upon window creation:

  vscode/src/vs/code/electron-main/window.ts

  Line 129 in 33e5678

  title: product.nameLong,

• each time the active editor changes we update the window.title element :

  vscode/src/vs/workbench/browser/parts/titlebar/titlebarPart.ts

  Line 215 in 33e5678

  window.document.title = nativeTitle;

I am not sure if there is a third place where we have to call something. What I wonder: are maybe certain characters not allowed in this value for screen readers? Dos it reproduce if you configure window.title to a fixed value such as: "window.title": "vSCode"

[OliverJAsh]

Dos it reproduce if you configure window.title to a fixed value such as: "window.title": "vSCode"

I just tried that with the title foo and I can still reproduce this bug.

[bpasero]

Adding "help wanted" if someone wants to chime in and has an idea.

[cscalfani]

Is AXTitle set anywhere? That's what Witch uses.

[bpasero]

Well, if so it would need to be some API that we can use. I do not recall any explicit API in Electron that would set this but would assume the window title would just work.

[bpasero]

Electron sources are here: https://github.com/atom/electron but they depend on all of Chromium too....

[jdecaron]

I had this bug with Contexts, my other applications were fine. I reverted to 1.39 and it's working again. I confirm that this bug was introduced by 1.40.

[garyking]

If someone has time, please consider finding the VSCode commit that introduced this bug, using git bisect. I currently have Node 12 installed, and am unable to setup nvm, so I can't build a VSC version older than 1.40.

[bpasero]

@garyking you should be able to by just changing our error in the build scripts, I think it would still work.

[garyking]

I removed the check for the installed Node version in build/npm/preinstall.js, but building 1.39.2 showed a lot of errors.

[bpasero]

Can you share?

[garyking]

I assume the issue is a combination of things with VSC and Electron, since the issue does not reproduce in other Electron apps.

[cscalfani]

In the meantime, you can use ^W to switch windows inside of VSCode.

[yoadsn]

I use Contexts so suffer as well... BUT I used to use HyperSwitch - reinstalled and tested it - still shows the correct titles with VSC 1.4.
So, either Witch and Contexts should do whatever HyperSwitch does or someone has to nose dive into Electron V4-V6 diffs.. including Chromiums libs.. 😱

[nyrf]

Have same problem with Contexts.

[jryans]

This appears to be a regression upstream with Electron. I have submitted electron/electron#21462 with a potential fix, so hopefully that can land, be backported, and then we can update VS Code with the fixed version.

To summarise the problem, Electron's AtomNSWindow implements accessibilityAttributeValue to provide various accessibility info to the OS, including window titles.

Chromium 75 changed to Apple's newer accessibility API for window titles in the super class that AtomNSWindow inherits from. macOS still supports both the old and new style APIs, but it will prefer the new style if it is implemented. This means the Electron window title is being ignored because the newer API at the Chromium level has taken precedence.

This is a regression that has been present since Electron 6.0.0 (the first release including the Chromium change above).

[bpasero]

@jryans thanks a lot ❤️

[yoadsn]

@jryans Thank You! One thing I can't figure out is how one application (Hyper-Switch) is able to show the titles and another (Contexts and more..) cannot.
If it's OSX that ignores the titles - all external applications should not be able to access this information.
Any idea?

[jryans]

Hard to be sure without reversing each app... but at least on my system, the window title was correct in window managers such as the built-in Mission Control view but empty via accessibility APIs. So, Contexts and other affected apps are presumably using accessibility, while HyperSwitch must be using some other data source perhaps like Mission Control does.

[sergei-dyshel]

@yoadsn
Accessibility API (NSAccessibilityTitleAttribute)isn't the only way to get window title. There is also CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo which does report correct title of vscode windows and may be probably used by HyperSwitch.

[rg-manytricks]

@yoadsn
Accessibility API (NSAccessibilityTitleAttribute)isn't the only way to get window title. There is also CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo which does report correct title of vscode windows and may be probably used by HyperSwitch.

The problem with that method is that it doesn't allow interactions with the window—closing, minimizing, etc. must be done via Accessibility. So for our app Witch, it's a non-solution, unfortunately.

-rob.

[mjclemente]

@rg-manytricks Huge fan of your app - use it constantly - hoping the upstream fix resolves this. It's really frustrating.

[ltd]

confirm, seeing titles in the latest insider build.

[ariofrio]

FWIW, this also affects conditional activation groups in BetterTouchTool.