Webview Ctrl+Tab / Tab Switching Not Working (Extension Developer Report)

Support Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Hi everyone,

Following up on my previous report about Webview Ctrl+F / Search Highlight Still Not Working, I’ve discovered another keyboard shortcut issue affecting webviews in Cursor.

Context

I’m the developer of Scientific Data Viewer, a VS Code / Cursor extension that displays scientific datasets (NetCDF, Zarr, GeoTIFF, etc.) in a custom webview panel. The extension works on both VS Code and Cursor.

While testing on both editors, I noticed that Ctrl+Tab (switch to next tab) and Ctrl+Shift+Tab (switch to previous tab) do not work when a webview is focused in Cursor, whereas they work perfectly fine in VS Code.

Issue Details

  • When focused on a regular editor tab (e.g., a .py file), Ctrl+Tab correctly opens the tab switcher and allows navigating between open tabs
  • When focused on a webview panel, Ctrl+Tab does nothing — the keyboard shortcut is not captured by Cursor
  • This forces users to use the mouse to switch tabs or click outside the webview first before using keyboard shortcuts

This appears to be a similar underlying issue to the Ctrl+F problem I reported previously — webviews seem to intercept or block certain global keyboard shortcuts that should be handled by the IDE.

Impact

This is a usability/accessibility concern for any extension that uses webviews. Users who rely on keyboard navigation for productivity cannot efficiently switch between tabs while working with webview-based extensions. As an extension developer targeting both VS Code and Cursor, I’d like to ensure feature parity for my users.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open Cursor IDE
  2. Open any extension that uses a webview panel (e.g., Scientific Data Viewer, or any markdown preview, etc.)
  3. Click inside the webview to give it focus
  4. Press Ctrl+Tab to attempt switching tabs
  5. Observed: Nothing happens — the tab switcher does not appear
  6. Click on a regular editor tab (e.g., a code file) to focus it
  7. Press Ctrl+Tab
  8. Observed: The tab switcher appears correctly

Comparison with VS Code:

  • The exact same extension and webview content works correctly in VS Code — Ctrl+Tab switches tabs regardless of whether a webview or editor has focus

Expected Behavior

Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab should open the tab switcher and allow navigation between tabs, regardless of whether the focus is on a webview or a regular editor.

Operating System

Linux

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.2.44
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 20adc1003928b0f1b99305dbaf845656ff81f5d0
Date: 2025-12-24T21:41:47.598Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 5.15.0-139-generic

Additional Information

Related Issues

This issue appears to be related to the broader problem of keyboard shortcuts not being properly captured when webviews are focused:

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

2

Hey, thanks for the report.

This is a known issue. Keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+F aren’t captured when focus is in a webview or embedded browser. The team is aware and it’s on our radar. This is related to the same underlying cause as the Ctrl+F issue you reported earlier.

I’ll link this report to the existing tracking. I don’t have an ETA to share right now, but thanks for documenting these webview keyboard issues so clearly.