[reader50]

Recently in text-editors, holding down a key no longer repeats the key. Instead, a bubble appears with alternate symbols to choose from. I'm not certain exactly when it started. Example below from BBEdit. Result of holding down the L key.



Affected apps: BBEdit, TextEdit, LibreOffice text docs, browser text entry fields like this reply box.

Not affected: Terminal. Keys repeat as normal.

Has to be a system setting, as it cuts across apps. Some option got accidentally turned on, probably in either Keyboard or Accessibility. I've fooled around in both, without discovering a cause.

Any ideas?

[reader50]

Forgot to mention, I'm running Sonoma on a Mac Pro.

Unplugged mouse, no change. Switched to a different keyboard. No change. Switched to a different user account. No change.
There are no Bluetooth devices connected - there's no 2nd keyboard holding down a modifier key.

Further research reveals this is called the "accent menu". It was added in Lion, and became the default behavior at some point. Letter and number keys are prevented from repeating, even if that character doesn't have any options to show. Symbol and cursor keys continue to repeat as normal.

Key repeat behavior is controlled by a hidden preference, which can be adjusted several ways:

Onyx -> Parameters (main tab) -> Misc. (sub tab) -> Turn on the accent menu (slider) -> slide to off.
TinkerTool -> General -> Keyboard (popup) -> Support key repeat / Hold key to select diacritic characters
Terminal, to set normal key repeat: defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
Terminal, to conjure the accent menu: defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

After making the change, you need to quit/restart each app for the behavior to change. Or log out/in, or reboot, to fix them all at once.

At some point, I'll reboot into a bunch of OS versions and figure out when they made this the default. But for now, it's enough to be back to normal.

[reader50]

Upon further testing, this "feature" became the default in Lion. It took me years to notice letter & number keys no longer repeat.

I'm sticking with the normal repeat-keys setting, as I don't need the accent menus. And the most common accented characters can be typed with option-key, or shift-option-key.

[ghporter]

It’s odd that you didn’t notice the repeat behavior change for this long unless you almost never needed a repeated character.

I often create a horizontal line in a document by holding the hyphen key (or sometimes an underline). I think I’d have noticed this long ago, but nope; it never grabbed my attention. On the other hand, the accent menu seems to also be the default with iPadOS, because I just checked and yep, there it is.

How can something so fundamental to keying in information slip by daily, long-time users? I dunno…

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

It’s odd that you didn’t notice the repeat behavior change for this long unless you almost never needed a repeated character.

I often create a horizontal line in a document by holding the hyphen key (or sometimes an underline).

It still works fine with hyphens.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

It still works fine with hyphens.

Which makes it look like a craftily hidden gotcha… And makes it harder to figure out, since it doesn’t happen with every key.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Which makes it look like a craftily hidden gotcha… And makes it harder to figure out, since it doesn’t happen with every key.

It doesn't work with regular characters.

[christ]

Edit: ... read the whole thread before replying, nitwit.