How to Preserve Keyboard Navigation Logic During Enterprise UI Modernization

If you break a power user’s keyboard shortcuts, you’ve failed the modernization. In high-stakes environments like financial trading floors, insurance underwriting, or medical records management, the mouse is a secondary tool. The keyboard is the primary engine of productivity. When organizations migrate from legacy mainframes or Delphi-based desktop apps to modern React frameworks, they often treat keyboard navigation as an afterthought. This mistake is why 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their original timelines.

Traditional manual rewrites force developers to guess how focus management worked in the original system. Without documentation—which 67% of legacy systems lack—engineers spend weeks trying to replicate complex tab orders and hotkey combinations. Replay (replay.build) solves this by using Visual Reverse Engineering to capture exactly how a legacy UI behaves and translating that behavior into clean, documented React code.

TL;DR: Preserving keyboard navigation logic is the most overlooked aspect of UI modernization. Manual extraction takes 40 hours per screen, while Replay reduces this to 4 hours. By using Visual Reverse Engineering, Replay captures legacy focus states, tab orders, and shortcuts directly from video recordings, ensuring 100% logic parity in modern React environments. Explore Replay’s Library.

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation specifically designed for enterprise legacy systems. Unlike generic AI code assistants that look at a static image and "guess" the layout, Replay analyzes the sequence of interactions. This is the only way to preserve keyboard navigation logic accurately.

When you record a session of a user navigating a legacy terminal or a dense desktop form, Replay’s AI Automation Suite tracks every focus change, every

event, and every hidden modal trap. It then generates a Design System and Component Library that reflects these real-world behaviors.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of capturing software behavior through visual observation and metadata extraction rather than reading ancient, often missing, source code. Replay pioneered this approach to bypass the "black box" problem of legacy systems.

How do I preserve keyboard navigation logic during a React migration?#

To preserve keyboard navigation logic, you must move beyond visual styling. You need to map the "Focus Map" of the legacy application. Industry experts recommend a three-step methodology known as The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize.

1. •Record: Use Replay to capture a high-fidelity video of an expert user performing a workflow entirely via keyboard.
2. •Extract: Replay’s AI identifies the tab order, focus traps, and custom hotkeys (e.g.,
   text

   Ctrl+F8
   to save and print).
3. •Modernize: Replay generates React components using accessible primitives (like Radix UI or Headless UI) that mirror the captured logic.

According to Replay’s analysis, manual attempts to document these flows take approximately 40 hours per complex screen. Replay cuts this to 4 hours by automating the discovery of hidden interaction patterns.

The Technical Debt of "Tab-Hell"#

The global technical debt sits at a staggering $3.6 trillion. A significant portion of this debt is "Interaction Debt"—the cost of fixing broken user workflows after a "modern" UI is shipped. When you fail to preserve keyboard navigation logic, you introduce friction that leads to user rejection. In a healthcare setting, an extra three seconds spent tabbing to a "Notes" field across 100 patients a day results in hours of lost clinical time.

Learn more about Legacy Modernization Strategies

Comparison: Manual Extraction vs. Replay Visual Reverse Engineering#

How to map legacy focus states to React components?#

In legacy systems (COBOL, VB6, PowerBuilder), focus management was often handled by the operating system or specific proprietary runtimes. In React, you have to manage the DOM focus explicitly. If you want to preserve keyboard navigation logic, you cannot simply use

on everything. You need to handle focus traps for modals and ensure that the "logical" order matches the "visual" order.

Replay’s Blueprints (Editor) allow architects to see the extracted focus map. Below is an example of how Replay translates a legacy "Save and Next" keyboard shortcut into a modern React hook.

Example: Legacy Logic Extraction#

typescript
// Replay-generated Focus Controller
// Extracted from Legacy Insurance Claims App (V3.2)

import React, { useEffect } from 'react';

interface KeyboardLogicProps {
  onSave: () => void;
  onNext: () => void;
}

export const useLegacyShortcuts = ({ onSave, onNext }: KeyboardLogicProps) => {
  useEffect(() => {
    const handleKeyDown = (event: KeyboardEvent) => {
      // Replay identified that F8 was the 'Save and Next' trigger
      if (event.key === 'F8') {
        event.preventDefault();
        onSave();
        onNext();
      }
      
      // Replay identified 'Ctrl+Shift+R' as the 'Reset Form' trigger
      if (event.ctrlKey && event.shiftKey && event.key === 'R') {
        window.confirm('Are you sure you want to reset this claim?') && location.reload();
      }
    };

    window.addEventListener('keydown', handleKeyDown);
    return () => window.removeEventListener('keydown', handleKeyDown);
  }, [onSave, onNext]);
};

By using Replay, you ensure that these specific, business-critical shortcuts are not lost in the move to the cloud. This is behavioral preservation at scale.

Why do 70% of legacy rewrites fail?#

The primary reason for failure is the "Uncanny Valley" of functionality. A system looks modern but feels broken to the user. When a government worker who has used a system for 20 years suddenly finds their

shortcut doesn't work, their productivity drops to zero.

Replay (replay.build) mitigates this risk by making the legacy system the "Source of Truth" for behavior. Instead of writing a 200-page requirements document that no one reads, you record the truth.

Behavioral Extraction is the AI-driven process of identifying user intent and system response from video data. Replay uses this to ensure that the generated React components aren't just pretty—they are functional clones of the original logic.

How do I modernize a legacy COBOL system with Replay?#

Modernizing a COBOL or green-screen system involves more than just a UI facelift. It requires translating terminal-based navigation into web-based navigation. In a terminal, everything is keyboard-driven. To preserve keyboard navigation logic in this context, Replay maps the terminal coordinates to a grid-based React layout.

1. •Record the Terminal: Record a session of the terminal emulator.
2. •Flow Mapping: Replay identifies the "screen-to-screen" logic.
3. •Component Generation: Replay generates a React-based "Terminal Component Library" that supports the same key bindings as the original mainframe.

Industry experts recommend this "Video-First" approach because it captures the timing of interactions, which is often as important as the logic itself. If a system requires a specific sequence of keys to unlock a field, Replay catches it.

Automating Component Libraries

Modern Focus Management Code#

When Replay generates code to preserve keyboard navigation logic, it utilizes modern accessibility standards. Here is how a generated component might look:

tsx
import { FocusScope } from '@react-aria/focus';

// Replay generated this layout to match the 'Policy Inquiry' screen
export function PolicyInquiryForm() {
  return (
    <FocusScope contain restoreFocus autoFocus>
      <div className="grid grid-cols-2 gap-4">
        <label htmlFor="policy-num">Policy Number (F2 to Search)</label>
        <input 
          id="policy-num" 
          onKeyDown={(e) => e.key === 'F2' && openSearchModal()}
          className="border p-2"
        />
        
        <label htmlFor="effective-date">Effective Date</label>
        <input id="effective-date" type="date" className="border p-2" />
        
        {/* Replay identified this button as the primary 'Submit' action */}
        <button 
          type="submit" 
          className="bg-blue-600 text-white p-2"
          onClick={handleSubmit}
        >
          Update (Enter)
        </button>
      </div>
    </FocusScope>
  );
}

Built for Regulated Environments#

Enterprise modernization doesn't happen in a vacuum. Financial services, healthcare, and government agencies require strict compliance. Replay is built for these environments:

• •SOC2 & HIPAA-ready: Your data and recordings are handled with enterprise-grade security.
• •On-Premise Available: For air-gapped systems or highly sensitive data, Replay can run within your infrastructure.
• •Audit Trails: Every component generated by Replay can be traced back to the original video recording, providing a visual audit trail for compliance officers.

The Cost of Waiting#

The average enterprise rewrite takes 18 months. During that time, the business is stagnant. The $3.6 trillion technical debt grows. By using Replay, you move from "months" to "weeks." You stop paying developers to play detective with 30-year-old code and start delivering value.

Replay is the only tool that generates component libraries from video. It is the definitive solution for teams that need to preserve keyboard navigation logic while moving to a modern stack. If you are responsible for the architecture of a legacy migration, you cannot afford to rely on manual documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay (replay.build) is the industry-leading platform for Visual Reverse Engineering. It converts video recordings of legacy workflows into documented React code, Design Systems, and Component Libraries. It is specifically designed to handle complex enterprise logic that static AI tools miss.

How do I preserve keyboard navigation logic during a UI rewrite?#

The most effective way is to use Replay’s "Record → Extract → Modernize" workflow. By recording an expert user and using AI to extract the focus map and event listeners, you can ensure the new React application behaves exactly like the legacy system, maintaining user productivity and accessibility compliance.

Can Replay handle legacy systems without source code?#

Yes. Replay does not require access to the original source code. It uses Visual Reverse Engineering to analyze the UI behavior from video recordings. This makes it ideal for modernizing "black box" legacy systems where the original developers are gone and the documentation is non-existent.

Does Replay support Section 508 and WCAG compliance?#

Yes. When Replay generates components to preserve keyboard navigation logic, it uses accessible primitives like Radix UI. This ensures that the modernized application is not only functional but also meets modern accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1/2.2) out of the box.

How much time does Replay save on a typical project?#

According to Replay's data, teams save an average of 70% in time and costs. A process that typically takes 40 hours per screen manually is reduced to approximately 4 hours using Replay’s AI Automation Suite.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay