enable a customizable sound to indicate successful/failed task completion

[zpdDG4gta8XKpMCd]

• VSCode Version: 1.5.2
• OS Version: Windows 10

It would be helpful to hear a sound at completion long running tasks.

[chrmarti]

Or a visual notification could be helpful too.

[dbaeumer]

There is an issue requesting a proper status bar item for tasks.

[fantaclaus]

I'm also waiting for this feature.

It is very needed when the typescript compiler is working in a watch mode.

So after a code change I could immediately switch to a browser. If there were no errors I will just refresh a page to see the changes. So I don't have to visually monitor the status bar of VSCode.

[dbaeumer]

@fantaclaus there is feedback if the tsc compiler is in watch mode. There should be a spinning ascii art next to the problem indicator in the status bat when the tsc compile is active in the background.

[rozzzly]

Really simple implementation. Allow items in the status bar to change their background color. Preferably just provide a method to set the css on that element so you can do css animations.

Blinking red: failure
Green: success.

would be easy to return them to their original state as well

---

I'd like to point out that it is possible to play sounds from the extension api. [timmyreilly/TypewriterNoises-VSCode]

However, this is pretty hacky. It ships with an .exe for windows users that is uses child_process.execFile(...) to run that .exe (passes audio file path via cli argument) for other systems, it uses [shime/play-sound]which attempts to find a native media player to send the sound to (useschild_process.execFile(...)` aswell)

But this terribly inefficient because it spawns a seperate process each time you trigger the sound. Plus you can't pause, seek, restart, etc. Hell there's not even a good way of telling if the sound is finished playing. Not to mention compatibility issues.

It'd be cool to offer a easy way to do this. Would prob be easy considering vscode use electron which is basically a browser, which means it'll have access to the Web Audio Api so you just need to write a shim that interacts with it.

[Click to Expand] I got inspired and wrote a simple api that vscode could implement

import { Sound } from 'vscode';

const errorSound = new Sound(someURI);
// create a new sound
errorSound.length(); 
// number; eg: 5000 (ms)
errorSound.play(); 
// plays the from the current cursor position; if cursor is at the end of
// the track move it back to the start and begin playing there
// returns promise that resolves when the track has finished
errorSound.play(start: number); 
// plays the track from the specified start position until end of track.
// returns promise that resolves when the track has finished
errorSound.play(start: number, end: number); 
// plays the track from the start position until the the end position.
// returns promise that resolves when the track has finished
errorSound.cursorPosition;
// number; the current (ms) position of the 'cursor' in the track.
errorSound.seek(time: number);
 // move 'cursor' to specified time. If playing, continue 
// to play, otherwise remain stopped.
errorSound.pause(); 
// stop at current position
errorSound.restart(); 
// move 'cursor' to 0, and keep/start playing.
// returns promise that resolves when the track has finished
errorSound.isPlaying();
// boolean, if the sound is playing
errorSound.donePlaying(); 
// boolean; true if the cursor is at the end of the track
errorSound.stop();
// stops playing the sound, cursor returns to 0
errorSound.loop(times?: number); 
// plays the sound specified number of times. 
// Omitting a number makes it loop infinitely until stopped 
// or restarted, but pause/resume don't stop it from looping
// returns a promise that is resolved when looping is completed or stopped
errorSound.loopsLeft;
// false if not looping, undefined if looping infinitely or when looping for x ms.
// otherwise gives the number of remaining loops (excluding
// the current play through. So if you read this value while the loop
// is in its last iteration, it returns 0. Or if you specify 10 loops,
// on the first iteration this method would tell you 9 left.
errorSound.loopFor(ms: number);
// same behavior but dependant on elapsed ms instead of iterations.
// pausing the track also pauses the elapsed timer until playing is resumed
// probably should add an equivalent for loops remains. perhaps "loopTimeLeft"
// returns a promise that resolves when the loop has finished.
errorSound.dispose();
// destroy that object. If there are no other instances of the same file, unload the audiobuffer/whatever
const errorSound2 = errorSound.clone();
// creates clone of the sound so that 2+ instances of the same sound
// can be controlled independently. Maintain their own cursor 
// position, playing status, loopsLeft, etc
Sound.loaded // an array of each instance, but cloned duplicates are deduped
Sound.all // an array of all the instances (including clones/duplicates)
Sound.playing // an array of the instances that are currently playing.

...but then I realized that there are prob better preexisting libs out there built on top of the WebAudioApi with simple api.

oh well 😒

[fantaclaus]

@dbaeumer you are right, there is a spinning indicator.

But currently I have to watch it and wait until it stop spinning.

I would rather prefer to use this time to review the code or to switch to a browser and be ready to reload a page as soon as I hear the sound of success.

Moreover, at some workplaces I have only one monitor, and a browser takes its surface entirely. So I cannot see VSCode at the same time.

[ronjb04]

any solution for this yet? i was hoping that vscode already has this sound feature when task is done

[alexr00]

Duplicate of #7090

[vscodebot]

Thanks for creating this issue! We figured it's covering the same as another one we already have. Thus, we closed this one as a duplicate. You can search for existing issues here. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[fantaclaus]

@alexr00, how could the request for "customizable sound" be a duplicate for a request for "some visual feedback"? The sound is not a kind of visual effect, is it?

[alexr00]

The duplicate is about adding a post action to tasks. Visual feedback or a sound after a task are both types of post action.