How to disable "U.S." Input Source?

Question

Level 1

8 points

How to disable "U.S." Input Source?

I am noticing my language input keeps on jumping back to U.S. instead of Google's Alphanumeric input. Can anyone please tell me how to set Google IME's Alphanumeric input as primary input source, and remove U.S. input all together? The U.S. input source is grey'ed out so I cannot just uncheck it. This is how the Input Source section looks like:
http://misc.chiisana.net/vcapture/InputSources.png

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Aluminum Unibody MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Jan 3, 2011 11:45 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,322 points

Jan 8, 2011 6:05 PM in response to Chiisana

once the user is logged in, the preference of which IME to active/disable should be up to the user to decide?

My impression is that Apple thinks it is best not to allow that even after you are logged in. But give them your views on it here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,322 points

Jan 3, 2011 12:00 PM in response to Chiisana

I don't think you can disable US. OS X always keeps one Apple keyboard like that active by default. This might be to avoid users accidentally winding up with no keyboard able to enter ascii characters for passwords, etc.

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Answer 3

Chiisana Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 8, 2011 5:44 PM in response to Chiisana

Replying my own problem.

In order to remove US input source, for the adventurous few (see warning in previous reply), here are the procedures:
1) Make a backup of your preferences, via Time Machine or otherwise.
2) Download a plist editor.
3) Uncheck ALL input sources in System Preferences > Languages & Text > Input sources EXCEPT for 2, the one you want as primary, and the one you cannot remove. You can add them back later, just disable them for now.
3) Open ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.<some string>.plist *<some string> is a HEX string (hopefully) unique to your machine host using your plist editor.
4) Under "AppleEnabledInputSources", delete the first node... should be something like:
<dict>
<key>InputSourceKind</key>
<string>Keyboard Layout</string>
<key>KeyboardLayout ID</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>KeyboardLayout Name</key>
<string>U.S.</string>
</dict>
5) Save, Login and out of your user, and you're done.

Hope this helps!

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Answer 4

Chiisana Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 8, 2011 5:00 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I'd imagine that's only at the login level, once the user is logged in, the preference of which IME to active/disable should be up to the user to decide?

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