Moving cursor right by holding down lowercase L pops up character overlay in MacOS

[mars0i]

Hi,

I'm not sure how to describe this. It may be that it's an old issue but I don't know what I should search for.

In MacOS, if I hold down the lowercase L key to quickly move the cursor to the right, a small overlay pops up. It contains a vertical line with a slash through it, and a 1:

This has been an issue for a long time, but I haven't reported it. I think I started seeing it in version 0.6.2, in an old version of MacOS. Now I'm using Goneovim version 0.6.4 in MacOS 12 and 13.

It doesn't happen if I move left, up, or down using the h, i, or j keys. It doesn't happen if I use the arrow key to move right.

Any idea what this is, or what I should investigate? Thanks.

[akiyosi]

@mars0i Hi, Thanks for issue report :) This is a very interesting issue. I did a little research and it seems to me that the small menu in the following article is very similar to the tooltip you have a problem with. Are you using Rocket Typist to set up shortcuts regarding symbols with slashes in the vertical bar?

https://setapp.com/how-to/type-special-keyboard-symbols-on-mac

screenshots:

[mars0i]

I don't use Rocket Typist, and I don't think I have any shortcuts that would affect goneovim. However, your remarks show what is going on. Thanks for figuring this out. It is very interesting--you're right.

In goneovim and VV, if I hold down the e key in insert mode, the character is inserted repeatedly (as expected), but also the e-menu above pops up. If I hold down the l [L] key repeatedly in insert mode, it inserts many l's, of course, but the little slash-line menu pops up as well. (Clicking on the little menu inserts the special character. I remember now that an L with a slash is used in Polish. That's what the line with the slash is.) A similar thing happens with c and u, and probably some other keys that have diacritical marks as options. So the interesting point is that with l [L] and c, for example, these can also be used in normal mode. The l [L] key is probably the only one that I routinely hold down, for the sake of cursor movement.

Other interesting points:

• In VV, the menus pop up only in insert mode, not normal mode. (VV is another nvim gui that I like and use.)
• In MacVim GUI, the little menus never pop up.
• In MS Word, if I hold down one of the keys that have diacritical remarks, the little menu pops up, but Word does not continue inserting the character. It is inserted once, and then the menu waits for me to click on it, or type another letter after a pause.
• Firefox behaves the same way as Word, in the github edit window that I am typing in now.
• The diacritical menus don't pop up in the MacOS Terminal or iTerm2. I assume that's why they don't pop up in plain nvim or vim.

So these little menus are there for the purpose of inserting characters with diacritical remarks, but different programs control how they are used, and prevent them from operating in some cases. My guess is that popping up the menu is a default behavior in MacOS. MacVim disables it everywhere. VV disables it for normal mode, which makes sense, but allows it for insert mode, which also could make sense.

Perhaps this is configurable in some of the programs mentioned above. So far I haven't figured out how to do that. I'll keep exploring.

[akiyosi]

@mars0i Thanks for detailed info! Since I am Japanese, I was not familiar with such an input menu for accented characters, so I learned a lot.

I did a bit of research and found a few relevant articles, which I will share with you. It seems that accented character input menus can be disabled, but I wasn't able to find out if it is controllable on a per-application basis.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/enter-characters-with-accent-marks-on-mac-mh27474/mac https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/332769/macos-disable-popup-showing-accented-characters-when-holding-down-a-key

In addition, I imagine that Qt, the library, is anticipating that such a menu will be enabled by goneovim. I've looked into it a bit, but haven't found a way to control it in the Qt layer yet.

[mars0i]

Thanks akiyosi! The answer to the stackexchange answer you linked to explains how to disable the behavior globally, but one of the "Related" questions linked on that page also explains how to disable the behavior on a per-app basis: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/452755/44485 This worked for me:

defaults write -app goneovim ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Now the popups are gone from goneovim, but I'm still able to get the diacritic popups in Firefox and Word. Thank you! (I'm not sure whether I will use the popups in Firefox or Word, but I might, now that I know about them.)

So this issue is resolved now. Thank you for investigating and finding the key to the solution.

(I can add a note about it to the Wiki if you want. It's not really a goneovim issue, but since different applications handle the diacritic popup differently, someone might ask about it for goneovim in the future. This is up to you. Maybe it's not worth cluttering the goneovim Wiki with a tip about this.)

[akiyosi]

I am glad it was resolved!

Also, thanks for the suggestion about listing the Knowledge related to this Issue on the wiki. I think it would be useful and would appreciate it.

Closed.

[mars0i]

Great--thanks. I'll add to the wiki as soon as I get a chance.

[mars0i]

Akiyosi, I added some text about disabling the popup menus on the Tips page of the Wiki. Let me know if it seems OK or if I should change something (and of course I won't be offended if you change it).