The Terminal and the Shift Key?
Posted January 26th, 2005 @ 03:16am by Erik J. Barzeski
So it turns out that the problem I was having with the shift key in 10.3.6 are actually tied to, of all things, Terminal!
Yes, with Terminal running, the shift key in Photoshop doesn't work properly. Nor does non-proportional resizing in QuickTime Player.
I have absolutely no idea why this is the case, but it is. I'll see what I can find out, but preliminary tests are as follows:
- Renaming my .tcshrc file didn't change anything.
- Removing the com.apple.Terminal.plist prefs fixes it.
- It's something in the bottom of the prefs file. I'll post an update when I find it.
Update: "Secure Keyboard Entry" (see "File" menu in Terminal) seems to be at fault here. Enabled, QuickTime Player can't non-proportionally resize with the shift key held down. Disabled, it works beautifully.
Donate Life
Posted 26 Jan 2005 at 3:32am #
Verified by at least a few other people. Will file bug in the morning (3:32 or so as I type this).
Posted 26 Jan 2005 at 3:32am #
That would make sense. Secure Keyboard Entry stops programs being able to directly poll the keyboard - so they won't know that you're holding down shift. (Assuming that this is how they detect the shift key... maybe there's another way of detecting it, and if not, maybe Apple needs to build one?)
Posted 26 Jan 2005 at 3:35am #
Check out rentzsch's entry on this from awhile ago, I remember having to look it up when my option key wasn't working
Posted 26 Jan 2005 at 3:41am #
Ben, ok, so the thing should really only work in the Terminal, not other applications. 😛
Posted 26 Jan 2005 at 4:15am #
Except for the fact that it is secure entry, and you have to turn it on yourself. All the secure text fields do the same thing to ensure that no key loggers grab your password while your entering it into secure dialogs.
The reason it isn't on by default is something like this could happen where other applications need the keys and while your not actively in Terminal.app the state is global so all open applications are affected by it.
The only "real" fix is for Apple to make Terminal.app turn Secure keyboard Entry off when Terminal.app isn't the foremost application.
Posted 26 Jan 2005 at 4:21pm #
Adobe Illustrator CS also seems effected by Secure Keyboard Entry:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050113004012243
Karl's exactly right, EnableSecureEventInput()/DisableSecureEventInput should be made process-wide only.
Posted 27 Jan 2005 at 9:19am #
Well, this explains a long-standing mystery for me. Apple Remote Desktop 1.2 was ignoring my shift key and I never could figure out why.