Assuming you have CM6 enabled, this was changed circa August 9 (date based on a discussion in Discord) when the new search bar was being implemented in T371436: Redesign CodeMirror search panel. Apparently it's related to performance. I pinged you to the discussion on Discord (and have elided any quotations of interest to respect opinions stated elsewhere).

And if you're not using CM6, CM5 is doomed for this world.

Another thought was to introduce a separate shortcut – say Ctrl-Shift-F – that opens the CodeMirror search.

May I ask what this ticket would entail on the technical side to implement? Is the limitation due to contenteditable and all the fun that comes with that? :)

Ctrl-F is a very basic browser function and it is odd to see it broken. It also leads to silent false negatives, i.e. you search for a word and it shows zero results, so you think there's zero results, but there's actually results.

In T393833#10810407, @Novem_Linguae wrote:

Is the limitation due to contenteditable and all the fun that comes with that? :)

No, it is not specifically related to contenteditable. CodeEditor (Ace) and Monaco also have similar implementations. My understanding is that real-time syntax highlighting can be very expensive for a large document, so advanced web code editors all try to highlight only a small viewport instead of the full document.

In T393833#10810162, @MusikAnimal wrote:

This is a requirement for performance, I'm afraid.

What we can do however auto-focus on the textarea? That may need to be an opt-in thing for accessibility reasons.

I understand that applying syntax highlighting to a large document can cause performance issues (I've certainly encountered this in CodeMirror v5 before). But whether text outside of the visible area is findable and whether it is being syntax highlighted are separate issues. It would be perfectly fine for the text outside of visible area to not be syntax-highlighted, as long as it's still findable with the Find function.

IMO, as much as I am bothered by CodeMirror v5's performance issues, those are preferable to completely breaking the browser's Find function.

In T393833#11018472, @SnorlaxMonster wrote:

It would be perfectly fine for the text outside of visible area to not be syntax-highlighted, as long as it's still findable with the Find function.

Unfortunately, CodeMirror library does not provide this option, just like all the other sophisticated browser code editors.

Thanks for reopening.

#1 first preference

#2 and #3 together second preference

I went to go try to find something inside of .cm-editor on mobile today. I used Firefox for Android with "Desktop site" ticked. I was unable to do a proper find since I couldn't get the CodeMirror find dialog to open.

Perhaps we should add a button/icon for CodeMirror find to the wikitext toolbar, so that it can be clicked on mobile? Can't really do hotkeys (Ctrl-F) on mobile.

In T393833#11109407, @Novem_Linguae wrote:

Perhaps we should add a button/icon for CodeMirror find to the wikitext toolbar?

It is already there, in the Advanced section.

Thanks for the tip. I don't see an "Advanced" section though.

In T393833#11109416, @Novem_Linguae wrote:

I don't see an "Advanced" section though.

I thought you were talking about a button from the WikiEditor toolbar? You will only see a toolbar when you load the WikiEditor.

You turned off the 2010 toolbar it looks like? Or had the 2006 toolbar enabled when that was subsequently removed from the core software. Check preferences at

Turning the 2010 toolbar preference on worked. The search and replace icon is hiding in the top right corner. A little hard to spot, but good enough. Thanks!

Change #1187988 had a related patch set uploaded (by MusikAnimal; author: MusikAnimal):

[mediawiki/extensions/CodeMirror@master] Add 'autofocus' preference to put focus on editor after activation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1187988

Change #1187988 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/CodeMirror@master] Add 'autofocus' preference to put focus on editor after activation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1187988

I tested this out, and it works great! Any chance it gets cherry-picked to REL1_44?

Change #1188860 had a related patch set uploaded (by MusikAnimal; author: MusikAnimal):

[mediawiki/extensions/CodeMirror@REL1_44] Add 'autofocus' preference to put focus on editor after activation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1188860

In T393833#11183128, @KockaAdmiralac wrote:

I tested this out, and it works great! Any chance it gets cherry-picked to REL1_44?

I've made an attempt with r1188860. Are you able to test it?

Yeah, it seems to still work when I apply the patch from r1188860 to REL1_44.

Change #1188860 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/CodeMirror@REL1_44] Add 'autofocus' preference to put focus on editor after activation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1188860

Okay, thanks! I've just merged it into REL1_44 :)