Have you noticed that Unicode Hexadecimal Input does not work if the UCS/Unicode four-digit hexadecimal code point number begins and ends with a zero, and what is done about it?

etresoft, you wrote ”Fixing is a tall order. This is a user-to-user support forum for Apple products.” You are right, but we users need to make sure that more people complain about this to Apple Inc., so that this error in macOS is fixed. Please see my response: Mar 10, 2023 1:34 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

If more people start talking to Apple Inc, maybe we can get this fixed. I think the problem is that many people have not advanced past primary school literacy; they know the alphabet and a few common characters, and they think of other characters as “special characters”. They don’t understand that the whole world now has the same ”alphabet”, which is UCS/Unicode. ”Literacy for adults”, as I call it, is to memorise and use code point numbers for everything except most (not all) of the characters on an English keyboard. I am Swedish, but I don’t have åäö on the keyboard I use now, I write 00E5 00E4 00F6 to get åäö. And I write 201C for “ LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, because conventions for quotation marks are different in different languages I write.

I use approximately 50 of the affected characters; here are some important ones:

GRAVE ACCENT U+0060

DEGREE SIGN U+00B0

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE U+00C0

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH U+00D0

LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH GRAVE U+00E0

LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH U+00F0

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH MACRON U+0100

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE U+0120

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DOUBLE ACUTE U+0150

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CARON U+0160

LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH STROKE U+0180

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH LONG RIGHT LEG U+0220

LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED A U+0250

LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED M WITH LONG LEG U+0270

LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL R U+0280

LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH RETROFLEX HOOK U+0290

MODIFIER LETTER SMALL H U+02B0

MODIFIER LETTER GLOTTAL STOP U+02C0

MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON U+02D0

MODIFIER LETTER SMALL GAMMA U+02E0

COMBINING GRAVE ACCENT U+0300

COMBINING GRAVE TONE MARK U+0340

plus Greek and Cyrillic.

etresoft wrote:

… the hex input method. It’s been broken for years. It isn’t going to be fixed.

etresoft, I wrote in an earlier reply that the problem started for me with Monterey 12.4.

When I think about it, I probably jumped to Monterey 12.4 from a much earlier version. The problem is older, according to threads I just looked at.

So it seems like you are right that it’s been broken for years.

Unicode with Monterey - Apple Community

Clsj55 wrote: Unicode with Monterey

I just upgraded to Monterey, and now I can't use unicode the way I used to. Unicode Hex is still the selected keyboard, but where I used Option + 00e0 to type "à", nothing happens anymore. Can anyone tell me what's happening?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Dec 11, 2021 2:31 AM [end of quote from Clsj55]

11 December 2021 is not two years yet, but it is older than Monterey 12.4 from 2022, which I thought was the beginning of the error. If the error came with Monterey, the error started affecting people in October 2021.

I think Apple has probably become dubious of the utility of Unicode Hex. One of the reasons is that Unicode Hex as currently programmed using UTF-16 cannot easily deal with codes beyond 4 digits, which now includes over half of Unicode. For most emojis, less common Han characters, and various other scripts which need 5 digits, you have to type two obscure 4 digit codes in succession. For example Ace of Spades 1f0a1 requires you to type D83CDCA1 🂡 . Have you had to do any work with characters in that area? Dedicated keyboards or the Character Viewer seem like the only practical way to do so.

You and etresoft have presented guesses how Apple is thinking. I know that one can only number 65536 code points with 4 hexadecimal digits. I know about Ace of Space and the other things that the Unicode Consortium has placed outside of the range 0–65535. No, I have not had reason to use anything outside that range yet.

But I don’t understand why Apple couldn’t let customers continue to use Unicode Hexadecimal Input. WHY has the 0xx0 error emerged? I can only think of two reasons:

1. Apple needed to do something in Monterey that affected 0xx0, and they accepted the consequence for some higher good. (Unlikely hypothesis.)
2. Human error, like NASA crashing a space probe because people didn’t convert English units to SI (metric), and Apple as an entity doesn’t care about customers who want to use 0xx0 as Unicode Hexadecimal Input, or cannot register the information provided by me and others – perhaps out input gets stuck at low levels in the hierarchy. (Probably the correct explanation.)

Unless there is a some kind of “cost“ associated with keeping Unicode Hexadecimal Input, it could be kept, and those who are not interested in the method where 2013 is EN DASH –, and D83CDCA1 is Ace of Spades, and some Han characters also have eight‑digit numbers, those people could ignore Unicode Hexadecimal Input.

Even better, a new thing could be developed using voice recognition, so that we only have to say the unique name that the Unicode Consortium has given to each character: we could say CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER EF or ACE OF SPADES out loud, so we don’t need to memorise the code point numbers.

The bottom line is that it is unexplained why 0xx0 does not work despite the fact that Unicode Hex Input is still an offered input option in System Settings i Ventura!

It is incredible that it is impossible to get and answer from Apple Inc. why this is so. Apple Support apparently doesn’t have a channel where they can send this simple question to those who might know. All I have, as a customer, is guesses by you helpful people in the Discussions Community. It’s like kremlinology in the days of the Soviet Union, where commentators were trying to guess what was happening in the Soviet power centre.

etresoft, some things you write I don’t understand; other things I disagree with.

You wrote: “From the usage you describe, not only is it already fixed, it was never broken to begin with.” I don’t understand what you mean. I assume that by “it” you refer to Unicode Hexadecimal Input in computers that have macOS installed. As far as I know, Unicode Hexadecimal Input was working up to and including Monterey 12.3. Then Apple made some mistake, and Unicode Hex Input is still partly broken in Ventura 13.2.1.

You wrote “Apple has 3 different input methods for these kinds of characters. You are using only the most obscure one. Perhaps you learned that method on Windows years ago or something.” Don’t make assumptions about people! I have switched from old methods that I learned first, to the following method. For a small number of characters, I use an English keyboard; I used keys for simple things such as A, a, ?, [, /, et cetera. For all other things, including å, ä, ö in my native Swedish language, I hold down Option and enter a four‑digit hexadecimal code point number. After doing this for a while, one memorises a large repertoire of code point numbers. This is not an “obscure” method. It is the best way of writing texts when there are words from many languages in your output, and for writing things that are not on the keyboard. For example, I know that MULTIPLICATION SIGN has code point number U+00D7. So when I want a real multiplication sign in 2 × 2 = 4, I write 2 00D7 2 = 4. I hold down Option when typing 00D7. And 00D7 works in other contexts as well. I mostly use a MacBook Pro, but sometimes I have to use a computer with Windows 11 Home Version 21H2. I can write 00D7 in Microsoft Word on that computer that has Windows 11; the only difference is that I convert 00D7 to × using ALT+X instead of Option.

You wrote, “The primary input method is the keyboard.” Yes, for most of the characters you learn in English primary school, the keyboard is good. For everything else, such as „German quotation marks‟, it is better to learn code point numbers, so you can be sure you get the right characters, and you get a large repertoire of characters.

You wrote, “Apple sells keyboards with common characters in most local markets. See Magic Keyboard - Finnish/Swedish - Apple (UK)” Why should I buy unnecessary things such as a special keyboard for Swedish and Finnish, which I often write? It is quick to write 00E5 for å and so on, almost as quick as pressing one key for each character, when one gets a muscle memory for each code point number. And typing speed is an unimportant part of writing speed anyway; deciding what to write takes most of the time, unless you write transcripts of human speech, or something similar.

You wrote, “Next, for anglophones who frequently type in foreign languages, there is the basic ‘dead key’ system.” I have a vague memory of doing something like that, but abandoned it, and forgot about it, because of its limitations. For that method to work, I would have to leave Unicode Hexadeximal Input, wouldn’t I? And if I have left Unicode Hexadecimal Input, how can I quickly write “előre” with an Hungarian ő, when I want to write that in a mostly English text?

You wrote, “Next is the push-and-hold pop up from iOS. This is what most people use because they don’t know about the previous method and refuse to try anything new.” I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I don’t think I would find it useful. And you make assumptions about your fellow human beings.

You wrote, “Last and least is the hex input method. It’s been broken for years.” Broken since when? Please specify which year it broke, according to your information.

Unicode Hexadecimal Input is not “least”, it is best. Imagine that I meet a person with a Chinese name. I ask how to write it, and he says 5085 53EF 6069; I write those numbers, and get 傅可恩. (Three Chinese characters should be seen at the end of the previous sentence.)

You wrote, “It isn’t going to be fixed. Sorry.” Why wouldn’t it be fixed? It must be some small error that made Unicode Hex Input partly non‑functional from one version of macOS the next version. I’m going to make them find the error and fix it.

Apple doesn't make mistakes, at least not in the way that you think.

You seem to know interesting things. However, the situation now is as follows. There is an input metod available called Unicode Hex Input. Now it doesn’t allow users to write characters such as greek/mathematical π (pi), but we can write delta. Which seem crazy. I would like to know the following:

1. Did Apple know that this was going to happen with Monterey?
2. Was it a side effect of something meaningful, or was it an accident?
3. Was it unavoidable?
4. If it was not unavoidable, why was it allowed to happen?
5. Can it be fixed?
6. If so, can it easily be fixed?

It was a logical assumption and nothing that you've said disproves it. It seems obvious that the Hex Input Method is a relict from the days when Apple was still running those Mac vs. PC commercials and trying to encourage Windows users to switch to the Mac.

Don’t my words about my biography disprove your statement that ”Perhaps you learned that method on Windows years ago or something”? I have never been a Windows user, except when work has made it necessary, to such a limited extent that I have no habits or opinions based on the use of Windows.

I have never seen any commercials. I have never watched commercial TV, and I am blind to ads. I just read on Wikipedia that ”In Mac OS 8.5 and later, one can choose the Unicode Hex Input keyboard layout; in OS X (10.10) Yosemite, this can be added in Keyboard → Input Sources.” Mac OS 8.5 was released October 17, 1998. Did Unicode Hex Input play a part in Mac vs PC ads at that time? I just saw some of those ads for the first time on Youtube.

But then, a funny thing happened. The iPhone took over the world and Apple dropped the Mac like a bad habit. They ported the press-and-hold method from the phone to the Mac and that is now the only method that most people know about.

I didn’t know about the existence of press‑and‑hold on the MacBook Pro with Ventura that I use right now! But what’s the point? The only things I get up when I press‑and‑hold keys is a narrow range of simple things, such as ä and ñ. How do I get any serious stuff with press‑and‑hold?

The standard German keyboard seems to work well-enough.

Yes, but how is that relevant? I can’t switch keyboard when I write, and perhaps put a German passage in an English text.

It's not all about you. Apple designs hardware and software to meet the needs of its 1+ billion user base.

I don’t want anything special for me and my kind of people. But I don't see why my kind of people shouldn’t be allowed to continue using something that existed, functional Unicode Hex Input. It would do no harm to that billion of users, if Unicode Hex Input had been allowed to continue to work.

You can use the Character Viewer and setup a list of favourite Hungarian symbols. Then it's just a double-tap away.

You helpful people here provide these solutions. But is there any evidence against my assumption that people at Apple could easily correct this error, if they were informed about it? I am no expert, but I assume this error is only some minor detail, a small mistake, like when NASA lost a space probe on Mars because English units were not converted to SI (metric).

So if I were to make an assumption about what my fellow human beings used to type non-ASCII characters, and I guessed push-and-hold, I would be right about 99.999992 % of the time.

If we assume there are 5 billion users, your estimate is that 400 people know about and use another method sometimes.

June 7, 2021

Yes, I posted later that it seems that it started with the first Monterey.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that Chinese people are going to write their names in Chinese, not Unicode.

But I was writing about the situation where I, a non-writer of Chinese written language(s), could be quickly informed by a person I meet for the first time how to write down his name on my computer, that I carry around with me. He only says the memorised numbers 5085 53EF 6069. If someone in Rangoon asked me how my patronymic is spelled, and I say G, U+00F6, E, T, E, S, S, O, N, that person could write “Götesson” without he and me having to talk about “o with two dots above”.

I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you.

But judging from similar issues in the past, it is more likely that Apple will re-do the entire keyboard user interface and get rid of the hex input method altogether.

Do you see a reason why they would do that? I can’t understand how it would be big cost (in the sense of being a burden on the operating system) to keep Unicode Hexadecimal Input. As far as I can understand, one would need to be hostile (or indifferent) to knowledge and culture to destroy Unicode Hexadecimal Input. If it is true what you say, it seems like people in power want everybody to only do a bit of simple press‑and‑hold to write “piñata” and “Löwenbräu”, as if they resent people like me, who write IPA in one sentence and runes in the next, and want to know exactly what we are writing.