Can't get tilde character with IDLE 3.2.2 on French Mac Lion

[Franck Ditter]

Hi !
All is in the subject. I'm starting to use Python with Idle 3.2.2
on MacOS-X Lion (French). I can't get "Option-N space" to provide
the ~ char.
I tried to go into the Keys preferences but I can't find "Option-N space"
to modify its meaning. Its actual behavior is to merge lines of a
paragraph.
Thanks for help !

franck

 

[Ned Deily]

All is in the subject. I'm starting to use Python with Idle 3.2.2
on MacOS-X Lion (French). I can't get "Option-N space" to provide
the ~ char.
I tried to go into the Keys preferences but I can't find "Option-N space"
to modify its meaning. Its actual behavior is to merge lines of a
paragraph.

You are likely running into a current problem in the OS X Cocoa version
of Tcl/Tk 8.5 as included with Lion and as shipped by ActiveState.
Previously, if you tried to type composite characters, like Option N,
the Cocoa Tcl/Tk would crash. Pending a real fix, a patch was made to
Tcl/Tk 8.5 to discard composite characters rather than crash. You
should be able to get a tilde by using the post-composite keyboard
sequence: try typing "space" followed by "Shift-Option-N".

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2907388&group_id
=12997&atid=112997

 

[Franck Ditter]

Nope, "space" followed by "Shift-Option-N" gives a greek iota...
I tried other combinations, unsuccessfully.
IDLE 3 (French) seems to be unusable as we use many ~ in web applications :-(
Should we hope a fix soon, or leave IDLE ?
Thanks,

franck

 

[Ned Deily]

Nope, "space" followed by "Shift-Option-N" gives a greek iota...
I tried other combinations, unsuccessfully.
IDLE 3 (French) seems to be unusable as we use many ~ in web applications :-(
Should we hope a fix soon, or leave IDLE ?

Yes, I see now that that won't work with the French input method.
Unfortunately, there is nothing that IDLE or Python can do to workaround
the issue as the problem is in Cocoa Tcl/Tk and I don't know that any
fix is being worked on.

One approach that *might* work is to create a modified French keyboard
layout that substitutes tilde for some other key combination without
using a dead key (Option-N is a dead key). Ukelele.app seems to be the
most frequently recommended keyboard layout editor for OS X and comes
with extensive documentation. I don't have time right now to experiment
with it but I would be interested to hear if someone is able to make it
work.

http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=ukelele

 

[Ned Deily]

A followup to a thread in 2011-12.

Yes, I see now that that won't work with the French input method.
Unfortunately, there is nothing that IDLE or Python can do to workaround
the issue as the problem is in Cocoa Tcl/Tk and I don't know that any
fix is being worked on.

Good news! A fix for Cocoa Tcl/Tk 8.5 for improved handling of Mac OS X
input methods was recently applied and has now been released in the
latest ActiveState Tcl release (8.5.11.1) available here:

http://www.activestate.com/activetcl/downloads

It appears to fix the tilde problem and other similar problems with
composite characters, like Option-U + vowel to form "umlauted" vowels in
the U.S. input method. Many thanks to Adrian Robert, Kevin Walzer, and
the ActiveState team for addressing this nasty problem.

If you install ActiveState Tcl 8.5.x, it will automatically be used by
the python.org 2.7.x, 3.2.x, and 3.3.x 64-bit/32-bit Pythons for OS X
10.6 and 10.7. It will *not* be used by the Apple-supplied system
Pythons or by 32-bit-only python.org Pythons. More details here:

http://www.python.org/download/mac/tcltk/