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Description
Description of the new feature/enhancement
Conhost and Windows Terminal currently use the classic Windows algorithm, which is also used by Notepad and Visual Studio. Given 3 classes of characters - whitespace, delimiters and regular text - it works something like this:
- Forward navigation:
- Skip text until (after) you encounter a different character class
- Skip whitespace
- Backward navigation:
- Skip whitespace
- Skip text until (before) you encounter a different character class
In comparison Visual Studio Code's navigation works like this:
- Forward navigation:
- Skip whitespace
- Skip 1 glyph
- Skip text until (before) you encounter a different character class
- Backward navigation:
- Skip whitespace
- Skip 1 glyph
- Skip text until (before) you encounter a different character class
Due to this symmetry navigating forward/backward will produce consistent and identical results. It'll feel more "intuitive" to new users.
Risk
People can be very picky about changes to our word selection algorithm. Double-clicking words needs to behave similar/identical to before. Cursor navigation needs to be at least so close that no one will feel bothered by it. There should be an opt-out if not at least via a registry key, just in case things go bad.