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• Copyright and attributions were outdated or missing.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 move this table to below the option description

[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

[seanbudd]

Is this something you intend to continue to work on?