Rstudio: Improve typing accented characters in macOS

[m-macaskill]

System details

RStudio Edition : Desktop and Server
RStudio Version : 1.2
OS Version      : macOS Mojave 10.14.1
R Version       : 3.5.1

Steps to reproduce the problem

Attempt to type a vowel with an accent in macOS by pressing and holding a vowel key to bring up the popup menu of accent variations for that letter.

Describe the problem in detail

The easiest way to type accents on macOS is to press and hold down a vowel key for a period until a popup menu appears. One then types the number in the popup menu corresponding to the particular accent wanted. A single character (the accented vowel) then appears in the document. e.g. to get ā, press and hold the a key and then type 8 to get an a with a macron. To get á, choose 2 instead, and so on. This operating system feature works in most applications.

On the desktop edition of RStudio, however, while pressing and holding the key, multiple keypresses are detected and sent through to either the document or terminal. For example, attempting to type ā will result in something like this:

aaaaaaaaaa8ā

with the multiple a characters and the 8 also being echoed to the document.

In the server edition, the situation is slightly better. Attempting to type ā yields this:

aā

i.e. regardless of how long the key is held down, just one extraneous a and no number is echoed to the screen.

Describe the behavior you expected

Only the final, correctly-accented, character should be echoed to the screen.

[ronblum]

Reproduced on MacOS 10.14 with RStudio Desktop and RStudio Server using Chrome and Firefox. Also, RStudio Desktop 1.1.463 behaves the same way as RStudio Server 1.2.

[tslumley]

A note: my impression is that New Zealand is one of the places that relies on this most heavily, because we have place names and other commonly used words from the Māori language but tend to use standard US keyboards.

[ronblum]

@tslumley Interesting—I didn't realize that New Zealand uses the US keyboard. I assumed it either has its own keyboard or uses the UK layout, which some other Commonwealth countries use. Plus, in American English at least, borrowed words tend to get Americanized (Englishified?) or lose their accents, but some are kept as is, especially when they help with pronunciation—e.g. _exposé_ and _naïve._ In fact, _Māori_ is _Maori_ in the U.S.

But that's neither here nor there. Thank you for the information! We're keeping this as a bug to review.