Screen reader can't see syntax highlighting

[dennischenfeng]

Type: Bug

Issue

With sight, I can see that code has syntax highlighting, like different colors/fonts for keywords, comments, docstrings, arguments, etc.
But using a screenreader (e.g. NVDA), the text is just all one global font style (basically white text on black background), as reported by the "report text formatting info" NVDA command, which has hotkey NVDA+f.

I'd like my screen reader to see the syntax highlighting so I can customize audio cues / audio highlighting for different types of text,
Like audio highlighting docstrings and comments to speak in higher-pitch from the speech synthesizer, etc.

How to replicate issue

1. Create a python file. Add example code, with import statements, function definition, docstring, and single-line comment with hash symbol (#).
2. Start NVDA and go to any of those lines, such as docstring vs one-line comment. Press NVDA+f hotkey
3. Expected syntax highlighting, like different font color or anything else, but got same text formatting info for all lines:

4 space
Consolas
10.5 pt
very light grey on very dark grey
align left

What I've tried / workarounds

• tried on both VS Code and VS Code Insiders, all were latest versions
• tried disabling extensions
• I even built clunky NVDA modifications to do audio highlighting based on parsing the text myself looking for "#" and triple quotes for docstrings/comments, but as expected it's pretty bad in practical use.

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.97.0-insider (0979fcb, 2025-01-24T16:41:13.583Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 165U (14 x 2688)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	63.43GB (46.40GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id 10dd7f69-b098-4ad1-8341-1f89de36e2fd
Screen Reader	yes
VM	0%

Extensions: none

A/B Experiments

vsliv368:30146709
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vscod805:30301674
vsaa593cf:30376535
py29gd2263:31024238
c4g48928:30535728
a9j8j154:30646983
962ge761:30841072
pythonnoceb:30776497
dsvsc014:30777825
dsvsc015:30821418
pythonmypyd1:30859725
2e7ec940:31000449
pythontbext0:30879054
cppperfnew:30980852
pythonait:30973460
dvdeprecation:31040973
dwnewjupyter:31046869
nativerepl1:31134653
pythonrstrctxt:31093868
nativeloc1:31118317
cf971741:31144450
e80f6927:31120813
iacca1:31150324
notype1:31143044
dwcopilot:31158714
h409b430:31177054
5b1c1929:31184661
6074i472:31201624
dwoutputs:31217127
8did9651:31218798
9064b325:31222308
copilot_t_ci:31222730
ecdi0152:31224757

Keywords: font color, font style, accessibility, font formatting, text formatting

[meganrogge]

/duplicate #184357