10.5.6 breaks Dvorak keyboard shortcuts in Eclipse
I just confirmed this on two separate machines. After installing 10.5.6 the keyboard shortcuts in the Eclipse Java development environment don't work properly. It seems that they are interpreted as QWERTY (with some exceptions, like Cmd-Q and Cmd-,). It's extremely frustrating to try to work with all the keyboard shortcuts moved around. Does anyone NOT have this problem, or have a solution for it? I tried putting back a few suspicious files to the pre-update versions, but with no success. I also tried some other Java applications and they seem to work fine. (And of course I've reinstalled Eclipse.) This is a very strange and irritating problem.
You can set it so that Cmd-space ("Select previous input source") toggles between the two keyboards. So when you're in an app that doesn't work, you use Dvorak-Qwerty, and when you're in well-behaved apps, you switch back. (And you can see in the menu bar which keyboard is currently active if you "show input menu in menu bar".)
It's a bit of a hassle to remember to switch back and forth, but it's hopefully just a
very short-term workaround.
I'm having this problem also, I contacted MS about it, and the support person said she could not reproduce it. I updated Office 2008, then updated my Mac Pro to 10.5.6 and saw the problem. I cloned my MacBook Pro, via Time Machine, and see the problem on the one with 10.5.6 but not on 10.5.5. Is this a universal problem, or does it have to do with a specific file or extension, as MS reported that they could not reproduce it? Interestingly, when I try to customize the key commands in Word 2008 back to what I can type under "tools, customize keyboard," I get the qwerty keys in the "new keyboard shortcut" window whether the key combination works as expected or not. For example, print works with command-r (p in DV), but in the window, command-r gives command-r, command-l (DV; p, qwerty) gives command-p.
This is a pain. Had not noticed it because the only thing I had used since the upgrade was TextEdit and mail. But in Word 2004 it is really messed up. Instead of Bold, I get a New document, Command W (the <, key), gives the preferences pane instead of closing the window. What's even odder Command W (the W key) also gives the preferences pane.
How do I downgrade? Or has someone found another cure?
Random switcharoos of command-key shortcuts in Office 2004 and other apps (Carbon-related perhaps?). Sometimes, BOTH are active at the same time! Command-w and Command-comma both bring up Preferences.
MS suggested removing MS preferences all com.microsoft.x and the microsoft folder in the current user preferences folder. Apple suggested trying creating a new user. Apple's did not help. MS's helps me a lot, most of my command-key combinations now work as expected; however, some are duplicated (maybe they are if not otherwise assigned), i.e., command-f and -u (DV; -y and -f qwerty, respectively) both give "find."
Crazy-making problem, in my case for Microsoft Word,... Spent hours troubleshooting Word-related stuff (removed ALL prefs, both user and general, with no luck) BEFORE it occurred to me that the culprit could be the 10.5.6 update. THANKS to google "10.5.6 dvorak" for finding this thread, and to all of you for confirming the cause. Will stay tuned!
10.5.6 also breaks Dvorak keyboard shortcuts in Excel X (Yes, I was still using it). The behavior is the same as reported above in this thread: the keyboard revert to QWERTY whenever the command key is held, but doesn't seem to do so consistently. Command-S (Dvorak) works as it should, but Command-T (Dvorak) opens the "insert hyperlink" window.
I can confirm that this problem is directly related to the 10.5.6 update, as I was using Excel immediately before the update without a problem, and it was broken after the update.
Word X is also broken in the same way: Command-B (Dvorak) now gives me a new window, as one would expect Command-N (QWERTY) to do. Command-Q (Dvorak) quits Word, though, so at least the most useful Word command still works. 🙂
Very annoying. I don't use Word any more, but Excel is the one worthwhile program to come out of Redmond in the last decade and Numbers doesn't match its functionality yet. And no, I am unwilling to move to the Dvorak-Command-QWERTY layout since that screws up all my non-microsoft programs.
I'm another person
NOT satisfied with the hybrid Dvorak-with-Qwerty-command keyboard "solution". It's predictable, yes. (And, in theory, it's possible to get input-menu assignments not to be global, but rather to remain specific to a window (or is it an app?).
But in my case, I'm doing word-processing in Word and I keystroke all sorts of things like bold, italics, and copy-paste *on the fly* while typing. These command-gestures are so habitually "in" my fingers that I cannot use Word now without getting bounced to a New document window every time I mean to apply Bold, a preferences dialogue when I try to
close that new document; italic text every time I mean to copy text, and that darned unhepful "help" window (that cannot be dismissed without reaching for the mouse, grrr) when I automatically attempt to UNDO any such mischief...
I'm temporarily using Pages for my documents, though Pages doesn't have all the features that I need as an academic, so I'm looking forward to whatever fix Apple might be able to offer us.
Does anyone know, by the way, of a list of Carbon-based vs. Cocoa-based apps, so that I can browse for Cocoa word-processor solutions that might tide me over better? And, for what it's worth, it might be good to verify with a few more tests that the bug comes out exactly when Carbon coding is at work...
(By the way, for anecdotal purposes, I can say that Word has occasionally surprised me with this inconsistent Qwerty-command behavior in the past. But a relaunch of the app always used to set things straight again. That's why it took me so long to suspect the OS this time around!)
I tried Eclipse 3.5M4 Cocoa. It fixed some of the keyboard problems but not all, and it had other
obvious problems. Like, Eclipse->About Eclipse didn't do anything, and Eclipse->Preferences didn't
do anything. I gave up on it.
Of all the platforms that Eclipse supports, the Mac is special in that it wants preferences and about to be under the application menu. Everywhere else, these choices are in the Window menu and the Help menu, respectively (IIRC). Ancient Eclipse Mac versions didn't have them in the application menu, and then for a period of time Eclipse had them both places, and right now the Cocoa build is back to having them only in the Window and Help menus.
