Conflict between typing diacritical marks and assigned keyboard commanders

By Wenwei, 8 January, 2022

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi,

I'm really struggling to quickly type my most used diacritical marks–ʼ,á,é,í,ó,úā,ē,ī,ō,ū,ȧ,ȧ,...––because it interferes with some of my keyboard commanders. I keep changing which option key I use, but I'm always losing something in terms of convenience or utility.
I thought about using the sticky keys or slow keys feature, but this just causes an unnecessary set of problems or delays.

My current strategy has been to simply be more aware of how I type, but sometimes I forget, and I inadvertently open an application/run an action. I'm then typing somewhere else, which completely shatters my concentration. It's not the most intentional of strategies. It's also something I can deal with, but if there's a way I can use my Option key without mixed results, that would be great. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Options

Comments

By Bruce Harrell on Friday, January 28, 2022 - 17:32

Please list the keystrokes you use and what happens when you use them. That would help.

For example, if your keystrokes unintentionally trigger VoiceOver commands because those commands are the same as you intended your app to get, then when you get to that command, first type VO-tab so that your next keystroke (the one that triggers the VO command) bypasses VoiceOver and goes straight to the app you are using.

If the above isn't what your are experiencing, then you might want to consider using text replacement, which would enable you to use abbreviations that will automatically expand out to be the words and/or letter/accent combinations you want.

Good luck!

By Wenwei on Friday, January 28, 2022 - 17:32

Thanks for your comment! VO PassThrough is a much more elegant solution. I did not even know PassThrough was a common enough action that can be performed with all major screen readers until this afternoon. 😬

There's no no need to constantly modify my VO commanders or ask someone to look into my specific use case to help me figure out why I can't type. Thanks again – this really helped a lot!