bug#5011: 23.1.50; The {}\ characters seems to be impossible to write in non-terminal mode on Mac OS X

[Alan Third]

Andrew Hyatt <ahyatt@gmail.com> writes:

> Sorry for the late reply, but I'm assuming this must be with a keyboard
> that doesn't have a \, {, or }.  Which keyboard do you have, and how
> have you set things up so that S-Alt-7,8, or 9 produce these characters?
> How can I reproduce this on a standard US keyboard?

Hi Andrew, this is a clash between OS X's keymap and Emacs's.

On an Apple UK keyboard if you type shift-3 you get £ (pound sterling
symbol, in case it doesn't show), but # is on the same key, so you have
to type option-3 to get it. Emacs treats option as Meta and therefore in
Emacs typing option-3 results in the next command being repeated 3 times
and no # symbol.

I think the reported bug is exactly the same problem but on a different
keyboard layout.

There are a number of work-arounds including making the command key meta
instead of option, or unbinding the right option key so Emacs ignores it
and OS X's binding works, but leaving left-option bound to meta.

None of them strike me as being an obvious candidate for the default,
but the current behaviour is not good either.
-- 
Alan Third