[Bugfix:Forum] Fix TAB and ESC in forum textarea by akshitaa011 · Pull Request #12549 · Submitty/Submitty

akshitaa011 · 2026-03-07T19:55:44Z

Why is this Change Important & Necessary?

The forum textarea had an accessibility message saying "Press TAB to indent. Press ESC to advance from answer area." However, TAB was not inserting a tab character and ESC was not working properly.

What is the New Behavior?

TAB now correctly inserts a tab character using setRangeText() which preserves the browser's Undo/Redo (Ctrl+Z) history
ESC now correctly moves focus to the next control element
enableTabsInTextArea is now initialized for all forum reply boxes

What steps should a reviewer take to reproduce or test the bug or new feature?

Go to Discussion Forum
Open any thread
Click in the reply text area
Press TAB — should insert tab character
Press ESC — should move focus to next element

Automated Testing & Documentation

A Cypress test should be added in a follow-up issue.

Other information

No breaking changes.

dagemcn

I did a functionality and code review for this PR and everything looks good. I was able to observe the original behavior on main and the updated behavior after the fix. Code looks good as well.

codecov · 2026-03-10T23:19:21Z

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 21.64%. Comparing base (d7b82e3) to head (28353e2).
⚠️ Report is 8 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff            @@
##               main   #12549   +/-   ##
=========================================
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=========================================
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=========================================
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akshitaa011 · 2026-03-11T12:55:48Z

Thank you so much @dagemcn for the thorough review! I really
appreciate your time and feedback.

Also, could a maintainer please approve the workflows so the
CI checks can run? Thank you!

dagemcn · 2026-03-13T00:30:56Z

Thank you so much @dagemcn for the thorough review! I really appreciate your time and feedback.

Also, could a maintainer please approve the workflows so the CI checks can run? Thank you!

I have approved the workflows. CI tests should be done shortly.

akshitaa011 · 2026-03-13T15:07:36Z

The Cypress (UI) failures appear in sidebar.spec.js and student_info_panel.spec.js, both due to page load timeouts. Since the other Cypress tests passed and these failures occur during page loading, they may be unrelated to the TAB/ESC forum fix in this PR.
Could a maintainer please re-run the workflow or confirm if this might be a flaky CI issue? Thank you!

Christian2147

So, the TAB and ESC characters do properly work when a user FIRST opens the discussion form and tries to type a reply on a thread.

However, from my tests, if the user, while on that same page, decided to click on another thread and type a reply, the functionality of both keys breaks again.

The behavior should be consistent regardless or how the user accesses a thread.

dagemcn · 2026-03-19T14:06:09Z

The Cypress (UI) failures appear in sidebar.spec.js and student_info_panel.spec.js, both due to page load timeouts. Since the other Cypress tests passed and these failures occur during page loading, they may be unrelated to the TAB/ESC forum fix in this PR. Could a maintainer please re-run the workflow or confirm if this might be a flaky CI issue? Thank you!

I have approved the workflows to run. The tests will likely run successfully now that main has been merged into this branch.

akshitaa011 · 2026-03-22T18:55:28Z

Hi @Christian2147, I’ve pushed an update to PR #12549 addressing your feedback.

The TAB and ESC key handling is now implemented using event delegation, ensuring consistent behavior for dynamically loaded reply boxes when switching between threads without a page reload.

Please let me know if anything else should be adjusted.

Christian2147

I just retested this and it seems to be working properly this time, however, your CI tests are failing. Please work on fixing them.

akshitaa011 · 2026-04-01T18:18:00Z

Hi @Christian2147! I've pushed fixes for the CI failures — resolved the eslint errors in forum.js and server.js. Please let me know if anything else needs to be addressed!

Christian2147

I tested functionality again and everything looks to be working properly.

### Why is this Change Important & Necessary? Fixes Submitty#11801 The forum textarea had an accessibility message saying "Press TAB to indent. Press ESC to advance from answer area." However, TAB was not inserting a tab character and ESC was not working properly. ### What is the New Behavior? - TAB now correctly inserts a tab character using `setRangeText()` which preserves the browser's Undo/Redo (Ctrl+Z) history - ESC now correctly moves focus to the next control element - `enableTabsInTextArea` is now initialized for all forum reply boxes ### What steps should a reviewer take to reproduce or test the bug or new feature? 1. Go to Discussion Forum 2. Open any thread 3. Click in the reply text area 4. Press TAB — should insert tab character 5. Press ESC — should move focus to next element ### Automated Testing & Documentation A Cypress test should be added in a follow-up issue. ### Other information No breaking changes.

akshitaa011 · 2026-04-16T01:53:13Z

Thank you @Christian2147, @dagemcn and @bmcutler for the reviews and merging! Really appreciate the feedback and patience throughout this process.

[Bugfix:Forum] Fix TAB indent in forum textarea

649361f

github-project-automation Bot added this to Submitty Development Mar 7, 2026

github-project-automation Bot moved this to Seeking Reviewer in Submitty Development Mar 7, 2026

dagemcn self-requested a review March 10, 2026 20:34

automateprojectmangement Bot moved this from Seeking Reviewer to In Review in Submitty Development Mar 10, 2026

dagemcn approved these changes Mar 10, 2026

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github-project-automation Bot moved this from In Review to Awaiting Maintainer Review in Submitty Development Mar 10, 2026

Merge branch 'main' into bugfix/forum-tab-esc

e2099b0

Merge branch 'main' into bugfix/forum-tab-esc

a20a193

Christian2147 self-assigned this Mar 13, 2026

Christian2147 requested changes Mar 18, 2026

View reviewed changes

github-project-automation Bot moved this from Awaiting Maintainer Review to Work in Progress in Submitty Development Mar 18, 2026

[Bugfix:Forum] Remove duplicate keydown logic from enableTabsInTextArea

c76e2b1

akshitaa011 added 3 commits March 29, 2026 18:58

[Bugfix:Forum] Fix eslint blank line errors

28b0acb

[Bugfix:Forum] Resolve merge conflict in forum.js

8fc2829

Merge branch 'main' into bugfix/forum-tab-esc

f579ce3

Christian2147 reviewed Mar 31, 2026

View reviewed changes

akshitaa011 added 2 commits April 1, 2026 19:25

[Bugfix:Forum] Fix eslint errors in forum.js and server.js

97314a2

Merge branch 'main' into bugfix/forum-tab-esc

28353e2

Christian2147 approved these changes Apr 7, 2026

View reviewed changes

github-project-automation Bot moved this from Work in Progress to Awaiting Maintainer Review in Submitty Development Apr 7, 2026

bmcutler merged commit 68c6187 into Submitty:main Apr 10, 2026
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github-project-automation Bot moved this from Awaiting Maintainer Review to Done in Submitty Development Apr 10, 2026

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akshitaa011 commented Mar 7, 2026

Why is this Change Important & Necessary?

What is the New Behavior?

What steps should a reviewer take to reproduce or test the bug or new feature?

Automated Testing & Documentation

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