Apostrophe Key has massive delay on EN-UK Keyboard

inaniloquent said:

I`ve been having this problem for months. It is nothing to do with my keyboard.

Hi inaniloquent, I don't know if your problem has been solved, but here are my two cents. I was having the same problem with the french "grave accent" (as in "à" or "è"). All french accents and thingies worked fine (ê, ï, é... French is tedious, yes, very tedious) EXCEPT the grave accent. Use a different keyboard, fiddle abundantly with the language bar settings and input languages... nothing would do it. And of the several Windows 7 machines I maintain, only one had this problem, but it spread to another, and then another...

And then it hit me ! I was the one causing it ! Solution at post bottom, but I want to tell you here how this is relevant to your original post, to this thread:

In the above quote, I noticed you're using the grave accent alone "`" instead of the apostrophe " ' " and they are not the same. Use the apostrophe where an apostrophe is required, and don't use the grave accent unless you are writing French, Greek, Dutch or some other language that uses them.

The grave accent is a dead key, it works like a "sticky" modifier key, when pressed before an appropriate character key. For instance, the key sequence for typing "è" is ↓`↑ then ↓e↑ and then the character appears. If you use only the grave accent, pressing it once doesn't type anything, and pressing it another time (or holding it) makes two of them appear (and more, by twos, as long as you're holding it down). Pressing the accent once, and then space (or a character that cannot be modified with a grave accent) will type the accent and the space/character in that order.

What you experience as a delay is actually the first pressing of key onto which the grave accent is mapped (which varies between different keyboard layouts), that types nothing, and then a second pressing of that key, that types two accents side by side.

The problem I was having was resolved thanks to this post on SuperUser (infinite source of wisdom... and arguments), and the problem I had with the grave accent not working was the following: I had changed the key sequence for switching between input languages from the default alt/shift to grave accent. (Language Bar > Settings > Advanced Key Settings > Change Key Sequence). I was introducing the problem to other computers as I was modifying the language bar settings to my new tastes.

The advice/solution, put simply:

If you are using a keyboard layout that comprises a grave accent "`", never map grave accent to the "switch input language" or "switch keyboard layout" functions of the language bar. Instead, use the left alt/shift OR ctrl/shift sequences, or leave unassigned.



.... and use apostrophes when apostrophes are called for, not grave accents !

Have a mighty good day

"The delay is like.. maybe 2 seconds? But because I have to hold it down to get them to show up, it means that a bunch of them come out like this ''''''' because I can`t time when to let go of the key...so it`s basically useless to me"

I had exactly this problem - it just popped up while I was swapping to and from US to UK, to make a key combo work in a certain software which didn't allow shortcut customisation. I traced it to Control Panel/Region and Language/Keyboards and Languages/Change Keyboards/Advanced key Settings/Between input languages/Change key sequence.

That brings up a dialogue with four options each for Switch input language and Switch keyboard Layout.

In trying to make my keyboard management easier I had enlivened the Grave Accent radio button (I think for the keyboard one, but I wasn't paying attention at the time). Anyway when both grave accent buttons were dead (I've got Not assigned pressed in now) the weird Apostrophe delay disappeared.