Re: OS X Lion and "ApplePressAndHoldEnabled"

[Tim Harper <timcharper@gmail.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1888 bytes --]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>wrote:

> > In the latest version of OS X Apple has introduced "Press and Hold".
> > In Emacs, it's on by default.  This translates to in Emacs, any
> alphanumeric
> > key, when held down not in combination of any key modifiers, only one key
> > press is emitted, in contrast with the previous behavior where the key is
> > repeated as fast as your system repeat rate is set.
>
> IIUC this is because "press and hold" is then interpreted as "choose
> among various chars" instead of "auto-repeat".  This feature makes sense
> when the key is bound to self-insert-command (whether you like it or
> not is another issue, but at least I don't see a reason why Emacs
> should necessarily disable it rather than obey the user's system-wide
> preference for it), but it clearly makes no sense when the key is bound
> to some unrelated command.
>

If it did something useful, I'd agree with you.  However, in it's current
state, even bound to self-insert-command, it appears to do nothing useful
and everything harmful.  AEIOUY are repeated according to system repeat
rate, all other alphanumeric keys are not repeated (although, when pressing
a keyboard modifier, even shift, all press-and-hold incur repeated
keystrokes).

Not sure how/if Emacs can enable/disable it selectively depending on the
> current binding of the key.
>

I'm not sure either... unfortunately this is not a setting that can be
changed after Emacs has started.

>
> > Fortunately, there is a workaround, shown to me by hober of #emacs.  If
> this
> > is added at the top of your emacs config file (such that it is executed
> > before the frame is fully initialized):
>
> > (ns-set-resource nil "ApplePressAndHoldEnabled" "NO")
>
> Maybe we should include it in lisp/term/mac-win.el for now?
>

That sounds good... but do you mean ns-win.el?

Tim

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2702 bytes --]