I've inherited a previously used and configured MacBook Pro with Mojave (10.14.1) installed on it. I'm trying to navigate the system using the terminal but the tilde character ('~') doesn't work! Instead, what I believe to be a superscript ('˜') version of the tilde appears when I hit shift + '`'. What could be causing this, and how can I get back the default, expected behaviour ?
Tilde character is default to superscript version. How to restore default behaviour
keyboardmojave
Related Solutions
Using option (alt) key is the default way to enter non-latin characters from a keyboard which layout does not have these characters. For instance: I'm Polish, so I need to use Polish characters (like 'ą', 'ę', 'ó' etc.). To do that I use option key (option+a, option+e, option+o).
You can see the variants of keys of your keyboard by enabling keyboard preview: go to System Preferences, choose Keyboard and check the check box in the bottom called 'Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar' (http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/21/mac-virtual-keyboard-os-x/). Enable it by opening the keyboard menu ('Show keyboard viewer', you can find the instructions under the same link). Now hold the option key - you'll see the variants of keys in your keyboard - you should see the reason to type 'Ø' when you use option+shift+o.
EDIT:
The answer I wrote was the answer to the question in the title: "Why have option- shortcuts in text fields started inserting special characters?".
There a few options:
- if you could do that in previous version of OS X then the new version may have changed some settings (see: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/Keyboard.html - they can choose to change keyboard behavior as they want and they mention it).
- Also, since entering the text is system-based functionality it may not be overriden by default - you need an external tweaking software to do that.
- It may also be a bug - you're using an unstable version of the system.
You may find a solution (the tweaking software I mentioned) to your problem in answer of this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11876485/how-to-disable-typing-special-characters-when-pressing-option-key-in-mac-os-x
I had same problem, just change U.S. International - PC input source for U.S.
Best Answer
After going through all the keyboard settings, it turns out that there is a difference between 'US' and 'US International PC'. The bizarre tilde behaviour was part of the 'US International PC' keyboard configuration.