How is by-word navigation implemented?

[insomnimus]

Currently ctrl-left and ctrl-speak text differently in Notepad++ and other text editors (and even conhost.exe).

For example on good ol Notepad, pressing ctrl-right when the cursor is at the start of /home/foo/bar reads all of it at once; in Notepad++ it reads in order:

• /
• home
• /
• foo
• /
• bar

I've found the way Notepad++ handles it is the most optimal for me and would like to either tweak other editors or write my own editor for the same behaviour.

However the Notepad++ code base is huge and NVDA even larger; The Win32 API? even larger than both combined.

I'm wondering if I could get some pointers on where to begin and where exactly this behaviour can be customized.