workbench.action.submitComment not functional when first replying to a comment thread & confusing when editing comments

[hermannloose]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes/No

• VS Code Version: 1.66-0
• OS Version: web

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a CommentThread with CommentThread.canReply = true (the default) and some existing Comments in CommentThread.comments that have Comment.mode = CommentMode.Preview (i.e. published comments by code reviewers; please let us know in case we hold this API completely wrong though ...).
2. Observe the CommentThreadWidget rendering a "Reply ..." button.
3. Click the "Reply ..." button to open the reply editor. Type some content.
4. Press Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter (the default keyboard shortcut) to trigger a workbench.action.submitComments.

Expected Result:

• This runs an action contributed to comments/commentThread/context, as these are the actions visible under the reply editor at this point.

Observed Result:

• CommentThread.submitComment() sees this._body.activeComment as undefined and does not run anything.

  activeComment is the first CommentNode where CommentNode.editing is true. This is set by CommentNode.switchToEditNode(), i.e. when setting Comment.mode = CommentMode.Editing from the extension. However, the extension cannot selectively create such a comment in response to the user clicking "Reply ...", it could only do so for all visible comments preemptively, which would lead to bad UX.

• Another very surprising (buggy?) side effect of this: while actually editing such an existing comment, Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter does trigger a command, however it's the first command registered for comments/commentThread/context, all of which are not visible as buttons at that point in time. The expected result here would be that it would run an action from comments/comment/context, i.e. related to the individual Comment, not the CommentThread.

[VSCodeTriageBot]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code, the latest stable release is 1.68.0. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[hermannloose]

tl;dr: Ctrl+Enter should have predictable functionality for users and extension developers.

This would be achieved if:

• Ctrl+Enter while creating a comment (through "Reply ...") would trigger an action from comments/commentThread/context
• Ctrl+Enter while editing a comment would trigger an action from comments/comment/context

[alexr00]

Thank you for providing so many details!

[VSCodeTriageBot]

This bug has been fixed in the latest release of VS Code Insiders!

@hermannloose, you can help us out by commenting /verified if things are now working as expected.

If things still don't seem right, please ensure you're on version f1abeea of Insiders (today's or later - you can use Help: About in the command palette to check), and leave a comment letting us know what isn't working as expected.

Happy Coding!

[alexr00]

To verify:

1. Open a folder with a GitHub repository.
2. Install the pre-release version of GitHub Pull Requests and Issues extension.
3. Open a file that's part of a PR with the extension.
4. Make a comment in the file.
5. Use the "Reply" box on your comment to start making a reply. Verify that when you press ctrl+enter it will submit the comment.
6. Start to edit one of your comments. Verify that when you press ctrl+enter it will submit your edit.

[hermannloose]

Sorry for not verifying this earlier. In my test extension for Insiders it seems to work, contributed commands are picked from the correct menus and appear to honor when clauses.