Recurring issue with accents - French (and probably others)

[Mak]

There has been a recurring problem with accents with the tests, while using a Mac. This has been going on for years but since it's never been fixed I figured I'd say a word about it.

When typing on a Mac (this works fine on Windows for some reason) and at a relatively high CPM/WPM rate (I'm talking at least 130 WPM or so), the circumflex accent gets registered twice when it's only hit once (and I'm absolutely 100% certain about this, no need to wonder whether I'm actually hitting the key twice). It gets registered fine on three occasions:
- If the typing speed is slow (i.e. lower than 100 WPM or so, probably. I don't really know since I usually score higher than 150)
- If the circumflex accent is on a letter that is "inside" the word (i.e. "connaître", in French)
- If the letter that has a circumflex accent is the first letter of the word AND the word is the first word of the test.

This leaves one occasion on which it never gets registered fine: when you're typing quickly and a word in which the circumflex accent is on the first letter of the word comes along.

Basically, instead of something like this, which is what happens on PC:

Code: Select all

un deux trois quatre être

If you type quick enough, you get this instead on a Mac:

Code: Select all

un deux trois quatre ^être

And this happens on EVERY occurrence, guaranteed. And, of course, marks the result as a missed word.

Not sure how this is fixable, but I'm willing to bet it is

EDIT: When typing on a Mac, hitting the "^" key once actually writes it, and then it goes on the letter of the key you hit next if it can match it (i.e. it will work with ê but won't with ^t). You need to hit it twice for it to write on a PC; if you hit it once and then hit a key, depending on the key you hit you will get the same result that you will get on a Mac, but the "^" won't have displayed until that point. I'm not sure, but I'd say it has something to do with this.

[Linsk]

Hi Mak,

For a bug report, you should contact the admin directly, you will have more chances to get a quick answer.

It could be related to how Mac handles the dead keys. It would be interesting to see if this problem also occurs in Portuguese, where this accent is on a dead key too.

So, if I understand correctly, you have this problem on the word "être" only? What about the word "âme" and the words "âge" and "île" in advanced mode? If you type them slowly, you have no problem? If yes, this would mean that the problem is mostly related to the typing speed.

You say you're sure to type the accent only once, but what happens if you type the circumflex accent right after space? As you type fast, maybe you're accenting too early or you still have your finger pressed on space when you're hitting the dead key?

Otherwise, just in case, do you have the same problem on other sites and applications or only on 10FF? And does this happen in the other modes as well?

[Mak]

So long as the circumflex accent is on the first letter of the word, it will continuously happen. So yeah, être, âme, âge, île and certainly others in other languages, Portuguese for instance as you mentioned. And yeah, if I type slowly enough, it doesn't happen (it became the way I overcome the issue but it's not really satisfying).

It could indeed be related to the lag time between hitting the space key and the circumflex accent key, as it never happens when the circumflex accent is inside the word. I highly doubt that I'm still hitting space while I'm hitting the accent key, as that would mean that I'd get double spaces on a regular basis while typing, even outside of 10FF, which isn't the case (because it's set on my computer to multiply the characters very quickly after I hit the keys, as opposed to the default mode).

And yeah, it only happens on 10FF. Never occurred on other typing sites or in Word — any other software.