[OS X TeX] Autocompletion in TeXShop

[Luis Sequeira]

> Hi,
>
> I am having a problem with autocompletion (TeXShop 2.14, spanish
> localization) and the character ^. When I stroke the ^ key, the
> symbol appears in a yellow box. If the next key is a letter, say x, I
> get ^x, with no braces. But if the next stoke is a space, I get ^^{|}
> with the cursor | between the braces. Something similar happens with
> the umlauts. ä is converted into ¨\"a, with the umault before the
> backslash.
>
> On the other hand, _ produces _{|}, as expected.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help.
>
> Julian Aguirre
>
>

I get the same results with a Portuguese keyboard layout. This, of  
course, like another poster has said, has to do with the fact that  
when you press ^ it is considered as a diacritical that may be placed  
upon the next letter -
to produce ê, or â, for example. I am not sure what one can do to  
remedy this (my personal choice is to use an "international", or "us"  
keyboard layout, even though some keys become out of place; it works  
for me because I know where everything is, but this is not for  
everyone).

Barring using a different or modified layout, the only option might  
be to deal with it in TeXShop's autocompletion. You can't redefine  
the "dead-key" behavior in this way - i.e., you cannot expect to  
press the normal ^ key and not get the yellow box, etc, but if you  
can get by just pressing the space bar after ^, here's a simple  
workaround.
  The autocompletions are defined in ~/Library/TeXShop/Keyboard/ 
autocompletion.plist
Open this file in a text editor (I use Smultron; you might be able to  
use TextEdit - but make sure the file is saved as plain text, not rtf).
Look for the following lines:
	<key>^</key>
	<string>^{#SEL##INS#}</string>

(they should be near the start of the file). In the second of these  
lines, remove the ^ character to get
	<string>{#SEL##INS#}</string>

Now you can press ^ followed by space to get ^{} with the cursor  
inside the braces. Not ideal, but I believe it's the best one can do  
without changing the keyboard layout.

Luis Sequeira


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