Tab, Delete & Return keys just beep in Leopard text boxes

On or about 11/7/07 2:56 AM, thus spake "Michael Logue"
<mloguemadison.main.nc.us>:

> the Tab, Delete & Return keys just beep in Leopard text boxes except in the
> Finder. Enter, Forward delete and the arrow keys work just fine. So I cannot
> tab to the next box, but I have to use the mouse.

This is going to seem like a wacky idea, but try holding down some modifier
keys as you hit Tab. For example, try Option-Tab, or Control-Tab, or
Control-Option-Tab. Does any combination work? Just curious, because I've
actually heard of this problem before... m.

On 7-Nov-2007, at 03:56, Michael Logue wrote:
> After further review, the Tab, Delete & Return keys just beep in
> Leopard text boxes except in the Finder. Enter, Forward delete and
> the arrow keys work just fine. So I cannot tab to the next box, but
> I have to use the mouse. So far I have tested: Spotlight, Path
> Finder, Camino and Safari.


They work in Finder, Safari, spotlight, and Mail.app on my machine. I
don't use PF or Camino anymore, but tabbing fields has worked in
everything I've tried (including X-chat Aqua, iChat, Firefox, and
others).

At 2:56 AM -0800 2007/11/07, Michael Logue wrote:
>After further review, the Tab, Delete & Return keys just beep in
>Leopard text boxes except in the Finder. Enter, Forward delete and
>the arrow keys work just fine. So I cannot tab to the next box, but
>I have to use the mouse. So far I have tested: Spotlight, Path
>Finder, Camino and Safari. This means, for instance, that when I
>enter a URL or a search term into the browser, I have to hit enter
>to do the search or go to the URL, when I hit return I just get a
>beep. However hitting the enter key works just fine. It means that
>when I am entering text into a text box with several fields, I
>cannot to to the next line but must select the box with the mouse.
>It means if I make a typo, I must use the arrow key to go back, then
>use the forward delete key to remove characters. This is with, as
>far as I know, with no start up items in my account, and no
>non-apple item enabled in my System Preferences.
>
>
>
>However, when I started up in my test, administrative account, which
>was transfered over by the Leopard install program, by the way,
>these keys work. So it is obviously something that got transfered
>from my usual user account, or that I installed when I first got
>Leopard running, but I don't know what. I don't know where else to
>look for what is maybe swallowing these key strokes. Very confusing.

        So it's time to do binary elimination until you find out
what's screwy about your account. Make your other account an admin if
you haven't already. Log out of your normal account, and into the
other admin. Rename your Library/Preferences folder, log back in as
yourself (Fast User Switching can make these logins/logouts faster,
so you can keep your controller account logged in).

        If there's a bad preference, when you log back in, you'll get
full keyboard control back. If not, log out as yourself again, rename
your whole ~/Library folder, and log back in as yourself to see if
that cleared it.

        The rest is left as an exercise for the reader...


                                                Good luck!


                                                Chris

On or about 11/10/07 3:26 AM, thus spake "Chris Pepper" <pepperreppep.com>:

> At 2:56 AM -0800 2007/11/07, Michael Logue wrote:
>> After further review, the Tab, Delete & Return keys just beep in
>> Leopard text boxes except in the Finder. Enter, Forward delete and
>> the arrow keys work just fine. So I cannot tab to the next box, but
>> I have to use the mouse. So far I have tested: Spotlight, Path
>> Finder, Camino and Safari. This means, for instance, that when I
>> enter a URL or a search term into the browser, I have to hit enter
>> to do the search or go to the URL, when I hit return I just get a
>> beep. However hitting the enter key works just fine. It means that
>> when I am entering text into a text box with several fields, I
>> cannot to to the next line but must select the box with the mouse.
>> It means if I make a typo, I must use the arrow key to go back, then
>> use the forward delete key to remove characters. This is with, as
>> far as I know, with no start up items in my account, and no
>> non-apple item enabled in my System Preferences.
>>
>>
>>
>> However, when I started up in my test, administrative account, which
>> was transfered over by the Leopard install program, by the way,
>> these keys work. So it is obviously something that got transfered
>> from my usual user account, or that I installed when I first got
>> Leopard running, but I don't know what. I don't know where else to
>> look for what is maybe swallowing these key strokes. Very confusing.
>
> So it's time to do binary elimination until you find out
> what's screwy about your account.

I would never waste time doing that. If you know that making a new clean
user and logging in as that new clean user solves the problem, then I would
say, so *become* that new clean user and throw away the old one! m.

Matt, already tried modifier keys, didn't work. But he keys work in
my alternate, clean administrative account. Also, I just received my
new external firewire disk and installed Leopard on an empty
partition, only migrating my network settings. The keys work just
fine on this account so something in my home account is swallowing
these key strokes.

I will run the migration program on this new installation and test
further.

Michael Logue

Well, I just bit the bullet and did an erase and install, just
transferring my network settings. I figured that if the Tab, Delete
& Return keys didn't work properly in Leopard text boxes there's no
telling what other garbage was hiding in my home folder. So I am
just re-installing what i need as I need it or have time for re-
installing. I expect that the time i wasted would have been better
spent doing it this way from the beginning. Since i plan to do all
my work in Tiger for a while, there is no hurry until several
programs I feel I need get updated to Leopard, and perhaps the 10.5.1
update.

Also, what is the skinny on 10.4.11?

Michael Logue

Having just updated to 10.4.11, the problem has surfaced in Tiger,
although pressing the control key with the problem keys allows them
to work. I just discovered that it now occurs in Mail. Since I
didn't use mail in my installation of Leopard, I didn't discover that
the problem also occurred in entering text in a new message in Mail.

Michael Logue

Well I just discovered what was causing my problem. Kino on the
Nisus Dartmouth list solved it. By moving DefaultKeyBinding.dic out
of my /Users/you/Library/KeyBindings the problem went away. I'm not
sure how updating the system to 10.4.11 made the problem appear, nor
what I was doing with the DefaultKeyBinding.dic in my home folder but
it may have had something to do with my installation of Text Extras.
I need to do further examination.

Michael Logue

After further examination, I discovered that the InputManagers Folder
in my home folder had been renamed to "InputManagers -Tiger", but the
one in my startup disk/Library was still named "InputManagers". So
when I changed the name of the folder back to just "InputManagers"
the keys started working with TextExtras and DefaultKeyBinding.dic
installed. Very interesting, but what does it all mean? Is it to
keep the folder from being used in Leopard when you transfer your
home folder from Tiger ?

Michael Logue