How to disable inputing characters like ãâà by default in OS X? I just want to simply type ~^`

Question

Is there a solution for OS X 10.6? I don't find it in the system preferences.

Answer 1

You can try using Ukelele to create your own keyboard layout, without the dead key behaviour.

Answer 2

For folks using the US layout, I used Ukelele to create a version without dead keys. You could use that instead of having to make your own.

To set it up you'd need to:

1. Download a zip of my dotfiles and unzip it.
2. Move the keyboards/US No Dead Keys/US No Dead Keys.bundle folder into your ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts folder.
3. Delete the rest of the dotfiles folder.
4. Reboot so that OSX recognizes the new layout.
5. Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources and add U.S. No Dead Keys. It will be at the top of the list rather than sorted alphabetically.
6. Activate it from the input sources icon in the menu bar.

If you're using a different layout, my version might still be a useful reference, since I found working with Ukelele to be difficult. If you compare U.S. No Dead Keys.keylayout to the system .keylayout, you can see what changes I had to make, and then make those to your own .keylayout file. More info is available in Disable key in macos without a third party program.

Answer 3

The three characters you mention '~', '^', and '`' are all on my (UK Apple) keyboard - '~' and '`' are on the key to the immediate right of the left shift key (I believe this is above the tab key on US Apple keyboards) and '^' is shift-6. Try turning on the "Keyboard & Character Viewer" in the input sources tab of the language and text section of System Preferences. Then select "Show Keyboard Viewer" from the menulet that appears in the top right of the screen - press the modifier keys and you'll be able to see what buttons do what.

Nontheless, to get other diacritical marks and whatnot on their own, you can press a key that can't have that accent on it. For instance, to produce '\´', you can press option-e and then escape or any letter key that can't take the accent (for instance, w).