Sonoma: any way to disable input source switch popup?

Stephan Casas, who was the person who discovered the flag to disable the new cursor, helped me to find a flag that will disable input source switch popup without the unwanted side effect of the text cursor not showing up in some circumstances.

First, if you had used the previous flag to disable the new style text cursor completely, you should probably delete it using:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/UIKit.plist redesigned_text_cursor

You'll probably need to restart your system to re-enable the new style text cursor.

After that, disabling the inline input switcher pop up is as simple as:

defaults write kCFPreferencesAnyApplication TSMLanguageIndicatorEnabled 0

That makes the system start using the old center screen HUD style input method switcher immediately, without needing to restart your system.

Any open applications will still show a popup when the input method is changed. However, once an app is restarted, it will no longer show an indicator when it's changed.

That's more than enough for me. Hopefully Apple won't change it. :)

This won't disable the CapsLock indicator. There might be another flag for that.

See here for further discussion: https://gist.github.com/stephancasas/236f543b0f9f6509f5fe5878de01e38a?permalink_comment_id=4748936#gistcomment-4748936

It definitely is annoying distraction when it appears automatically.

Additionally, it's not a helpful indicator when I actually want to change input sources with a keyboard shortcut. Only a small toggle is shown near the input field. It only shows an icon, never the full name of the source. This is confusing when using multiple custom input sources that all have a default icon.

Before Sonoma, when switching input sources with a keyboard shortcut, a large menu in the center of the screen would be shown with available options that also showed the names and not just the icons.

Also, in Sonoma, if an input field is not focused, some times no menu/notification is shown at all when changing with a shortcut, but the input source still changes.

Interestingly, I’m not occasionally getting the old larger menu when no input field/box is focused, and some times not. The whole thing is confusing.

Is there some place that we can file an official feedback request?

This is really ugly and distracting. It even shows if the Shift key is pressed which is useless and extremely annoying.

Indeed Apple is going downhill. Just question yourself, how Svete Jobs would feel about such UI/UX! I bet he would be ashamed!

There is no doubt that this is a very failed design. Because of this design, I even want to give up mac OS. I am a software engineer, and it greatly affects my concentration when writing code.

New animation pop up is kind of useless... way too small and not clear... the previous pop-up menu was much clearer and easier to look at... please see if it is possible to switch back to that.

k0rtin wrote:

Most of the world has more than one language in their system settings, and we all work every day typing in some form of text.

In Sonoma, when you change the input source, a pop-up language indicator appears next to the cursor.

This is the worst kind of distraction.

Is there any way to disable this popup?

You can submit your Apple Feedback here:  http://www.apple.com/feedback 

Unfortunately not. The best thing I can think of now is to provide detailed feedback about the new pop-up to Apple at Feedback - macOS - Apple. Hopefully if enough people express dissatisfaction with it, it will be improved or removed. :)

I totally agree.

The icon is not useful when you use a keyboard with separate keys like Kana and Eisuu.

Pressing the Kana key will switch the input source to Japanese, and by experience it will always be successful. There is no need to indicate the result (or current state) with an icon. Because I know the result! To me the icon only helps me locating the thin input cursor.

The new icon might be useful when you switch the input source by "toggle" approach, like control-space key combinations. In this approach you may want to know the result (or current state). However, as other users suggest, the icons do not look like well distinguishable. The legacy gray list of input sources may help this better. (It is included in Sonoma too, when the cursor is not active, like while Desktop is active.)

I also want to point out the order of the icons (listed by holding control-space). It should be fixed, rather than re-ordered based on the current source. If the order is fixed, you may be able to know the current input source more visually, without reading the content of the small undistinguishable icon carefully.

The main problem with this annoying and distracting feature that looks like that Apple thinks that this is an important event and they need to notify user about it somehow, for example by showing him a green icon. But, in reality I switching input sources hundreds times per day, this is not an event for me at all. I dont need any notifications or popups.

Another point is that it looks strange, it is too bright, doesnt work well at all with dark themes.

k0rtin wrote:

Is there any way to disable this popup?

I have put the info from smlinguist's post into a User Tip on this topic:

How to Disable the New Popup for Switchin… - Apple Community

Hi. Sorry for the confusion. It’s the blinking cursor that indicates the current insertion point for text.

With the flag set to disable the popup, it often doesn’t appear in some text fields in some apps. Most apps don’t seem to be affected. And even in the apps that are affected, it’s sometimes only in certain text fields.

I agree that it is annoying, however, giving up on macOS because if it reduces your credibility to Apple and as a software engineer. (I am a retired SWE with 40 years experience, I can maintain focus at my age even with this absurd 'feature'.)

I just check with the different keys (though I couldn't check with Caps Lock because I don't have a non-Latin keyboard).

Fn/Globe and Control Space both immediately show a pop up with icons for available input sources. If you continue to press them, the pop up cycles through, highlighting the newly selected source. When you let up on the key(s), a different pop up often (not always?) shows up that indicates only the newly selected input method. This might actually just be the automatic pop up that shows when you change the input source. I'm not sure.

For Option Control Space, no pop up is immediately shown. If you continue to press the space key, you can see in the menu bar indicator that the input source does cycle through options, even though the pop up shown when pressing Fn/Globe and Control Space is not shown . However, when you let up from the keys, the different pop up some times (not always) shows up that indicates only the newly selected input method. Again, I think this might just be the automatic pop up that shows up any time the input source changes when an input field is focused.

I've tried exploring all of the Accessibility settings, but I haven't come across anything that disables it or changes its behavior.

I've filed feedback using the link provided above. Hopefully this will get changed some day if enough people report it.

It looks like someone found a way to disable it with a plist setting.

Instructions can be found here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/77256214

After running the terminal commands suggested in that post and restarting, I'm no longer seeing the new pop up. If I switch the input source with keyboard shortcut, I now see the old pop up that appears in the center of the display with the full name of the input source.

I'm not sure if changing the setting as described in the linked post will affect anything else.

Some apps and contexts I’ve noticed the issue in:

• The Search text field in the Help menu that is used in most apps
• HoudahSpot (all text fields)
• DEVONthink (search, find, and other text fields in the side bar, but the main text area in the Edit/View pane is unaffected)
• PDF Expert (search text field in the main tool bar)

There have probably been others as well, but I’m not seeing problems in most apps.

In affected apps, usually the pattern is that the first text field to receive focus will show the caret/text cursor as normal when it receives focus for the first time. If any other text field becomes focused then most text fields in the app’s window will no longer show the caret/text cursor. Occasionally, all it takes is for the first text field to lose focus to another part of the window.