Kong / Kong/insomnia

,Urgent Accessibility Request: Please Upgrade CodeMirror to v6

Open
#8,754 2 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
B-bug C-improvement S-unverified
Dominant language
TypeScript
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2d 13h
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

### Expected Behavior

Dear Insomnia Development Team,
First and foremost, I want to express my sincere gratitude for your continuous efforts and commitment to accessibility within Insomnia. It's truly commendable to see the dedication to covering accessibility requirements, and it makes a significant difference for users with disabilities.
I'm writing to highlight an urgent accessibility need concerning the text editors within Insomnia, specifically the JSON and GraphQL body editors. Through extensive testing with NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) and Accessibility Insights for Windows, I've identified a critical gap: screen readers are currently unable to detect or read the actual text content typed or pasted into these editors.
Our debugging indicates that the underlying issue stems from the current version of CodeMirror being used. My inspection of the codemirror.js file within the application confirms it's still CodeMirror v5, which unfortunately has known limitations regarding accessibility, particularly in exposing its content to system-level accessibility APIs. This aligns with your team's own "tech debt" item acknowledging that "codemirror is unmaintained" (referring to v5).
The inability for screen readers to access the editor's content makes these crucial input fields effectively unusable for visually impaired users. To achieve 100% accessibility for Insomnia, an upgrade of CodeMirror is essential.

### Actual Behavior

CodeMirror v6 (the latest major version, simply referred to as "CodeMirror" now) was rebuilt from the ground up with a strong focus on accessibility. It is designed to work seamlessly with screen readers and expose content correctly to assistive technologies. Upgrading to v6 would directly resolve this critical accessibility barrier, making Insomnia's powerful editing features fully usable for everyone.
Could you please provide an update on your roadmap for this CodeMirror upgrade? Do you have an estimated timeline for when this crucial update might be implemented? Understanding your plans would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you again for your dedication to accessibility. I believe this upgrade would be a monumental step in making Insomnia a truly inclusive tool.
Sincerely,
Gisele Priscila

### Reproduction Steps

_No response_

### Is there an existing issue for this?

- [x] I have searched the [issue tracker](https://www.github.com/Kong/insomnia/issues) for this problem.

### Which sync method do you use?

- [ ] Git sync.
- [ ] Insomnia Cloud sync.
- [x] Local only

### Additional Information

_No response_

### Insomnia Version

core 11.1.0

### What operating system are you using?

Windows

### Operating System Version

windows 11

### Installation method

from insomnia rest

### Last Known Working Insomnia version

core 11.1.0

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by inspecting the codemirror.js file and the JSON and GraphQL body editor entry points mentioned in the report. Verify the current CodeMirror integration with NVDA or Accessibility Insights on Windows; done means screen readers can detect and read text typed or pasted into both editors.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
accessibility
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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