Disable the Character Accent Menu and Enable Key Repeat in Mac OS X Lion
Aug 4, 2011 - 13 Comments
If you hold down many keys in Mac OS X Lion, a little popup menu appears showing an accented character selection window. This replaces the long existing default of a repeating key, where if you hold down a key the letter will repeat endlessly until you let goooooooooooo.
If you want to turn off the character accent selector and re-enable key repetition, launch the Terminal and enter the following command:
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
You can now repeat keys as usual rather than have the iOS-style accented popup appear. If you want to bring the accented character selector back, use true instead:
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true
Most apps need to be relaunched for the change to take place.
That’s cool, but then is there a corresponding keyboard shortcut for bringing up the Character Accent Menu when one needs it…?
Unfortunately no, not unless you bind it yourself in Keyboards Services. That is why this tip is not the best, but you can always use the Option key press for åççéñts
How do I relaunch it?
Just quit an app and then open it again, for it to be system wide you might want to just reboot
[...] osxdailly] __spr_config = { pid: '4e398ab8c2b219497d000043', title: 'How To: Disable Accent Character Menu [...]
Cool!!!!! It works perfectly!!!!!! Great job William… Thanks!
THIS SHOULD BE AN OPTION IN SYSTEM PREFERENCES ANOTHER COUNTDOWN APPLE.
Works perfectly – thanks much for the tip. I agree this should be an option in System Preferences somewhere.
Thanks very much, you have been a great help.
You can install OnyX, too.
It has a simple option where you can activate/deactivate the key repeat/vowel accents
where do i type this in at?
You type the commands into Terminal, as is stated in the article.
[...] 2: You may also want to turn off the character accent menu when you press and hold a [...]