When you hold a sonic screwdriver there would be a key that you could press and it would improve the sonic's range.if you are using the 9th/10th sonic or the 11th/12th's first sonic there would  be a little animation of the sonic extending. If you are using the 12th doctor's second sonic it would light up green instead of blue. For the other sonic screwdrivers there would be no visual difference.

You could probably use the new umbrella code. It's already a sonic, so you'd just need textures for the extended sonics.