GNU bug report logs - #5206
OPTION key combinations using international keyboards in the NEXTSTEP versions of Emacs don't work

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Message #20 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Alan Third <alan <at> idiocy.org>
To: Anders Bolt-Evensen <a-bolt <at> online.no>
Cc: bug-emacs <at> gnu.org, 5206 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#5206: OPTION key combinations using international keyboards
 in the NEXTSTEP versions of Emacs don't work
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2016 21:50:37 +0100

Anders Bolt-Evensen <a-bolt <at> online.no> writes:

> Hey!
>
> I've been working on Emacs for some time now, and recently I started using the Mac OS X user interface instead of the X windowing system.
> But there is one problem: I'm using a Norwegian keyboard, and to use characters like |, [, ], {, } and a few other characters I need to use either the OPTION or SHIFT+OPTION keys. In the NEXTSTEP version of Emacs the OPTION key is defined as the meta key.
>
> OPTION+7 = |
> OPTION+8 = [
> OPTION+9 = ]
> SHIFT+OPTION+7 = \
> SHIFT+OPTION+8 = {
> SHIFT+OPTION+9 = }
>
> When I press the OPTION+7 keys, the vertical bar should appear as seen
> in the list above, but insted nothing happens until I press an other
> key, in this case I used the A key, and "aaaaaaa" appears. When I
> press the SHIFT+OPTION+7 keys, the word "system" appears. This problem
> only applies to the NEXTSTEP version - the terminal and X window
> versions work as they should.

Hi, one way round this is to unset the right-option key in Emacs so
left-option works as meta and right-option will behave as "normal":

(setq ns-right-alternate-modifier (quote none))

If you don't like that, there are all sorts of other ways you could
rebind keys.

Emacs has behaved this way for a long time so I get the feeling it's
unlikely the default behaviour is going to be changed. I don't know what
a good alternate default would be as not having a meta key makes Emacs
kind of hard to use and I don't consider the escape key a decent
alternative. Does anyone else have an opinion? Is this a non-bug?
-- 
Alan Third

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