Disable "Escape Hatch"

[marcoklein]

I am using the VIM extension with code mirror that requires lots of Escape inputs. As I use the VIM plugin in conjunction with TAB to insert spaces at the start of a line I often run into the issue that the view looses focus because ESC + TAB is pressed frequently.

Therefore, I want to disable the Escape hatch but find nothing in the documentation at https://codemirror.net/6/docs/ref/.

Is it possible to disable the escape hatch?

[marijnh]

There isn't, and that is kind of by design—you really need to have some way to let keyboard-only users move out of the editor. Do you have some other solution for that?

[marcoklein]

Okay I understand that it's about solving the keyboard trap issue.
I see two approaches:

1. Allow the escape hatch to be disabled. Then it's the developers responsibility to fullfill the keyboard trap requirement and not the one of CodeMirror6. However, per standard CM6 adheres to the w3 specification.
2. Allow a configuration of the escape hatch, so one could change it to another shortcut like hold ESC + TAB

What do you think about that?

[thomas992]

commands/src/commands.ts search for Escape it will be assigned to simplifySelection, you can comment it out
//{key: "Escape", run: simplifySelection}, I think ESC + tab would be "Tab-Escape." To configure this you could replace the "Tab-Escape" value with a variable.

[marijnh]

Attached patch changes the behavior to only let tab presses through after an escape press that wasn't handled by the editor's event handlers. This unfortunately opens new opportunities for people with blanket esc handlers to screw this up, but it should help a lot with your use case (assuming esc is let through unmolested in command mode -- is it?)