ie8 fix

General Mac software discussions forum: Text accidentally highlights and deletes

by: Professional_Tourist December 30, 2009 1:18 PM PST

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Text accidentally highlights and deletes

by Professional_Tourist - 12/30/09 1:18 PM

Working from OS 10.4.11 on PowerBook G4, iMac G5, and (early) MacBook. Have noticed while working in Entourage 2004, and possibly in other applications, not sure, that from time to time while typing I will accidentally press a key with my right hand, some key in the vicinity of the 'return' key, which will cause a contiguous string of text to be highlighted and deleted. It happens so quickly that I can never tell which key(s) I pressed to make this happen.

I think what actually happens is that the accidental keypress is causing the highlighting and then as I continue to type the highlighted text is of course deleted.

I can recover from this (once I notice it) by pressing command-z, but would like to prevent it from happening as I can lose other edits done before I notice the accidental deletion. If I knew what keystroke is responsible I might be able to disable it, or at least knowing might help me to avoid it.

I've done many google searches and have found nothing relevant. Have also searched these forums and the archive of MacFixIt forums and have found nothing. Any ideas?


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hmmmm...

by friedchikkin - 1/2/10 4:39 AM

In Reply to: Text accidentally highlights and deletes by Professional_Tourist

I'm not sure if this is applicable but I remember having keyboard oddities on my MDD G4 10.4.11 a long time ago- I've given it away and haven't had 10.4 experience in awhile save for troubleshooting the MDD G4 I gave away.

What would happen is, oddly enough, in the middle of typing- usually if I placed the cursor in the middle of a sentence I wanted to add text to, everything I would begin typing would delete the text after it rather than becoming an addendum. At first I thought that was a NeoOffice problem because I use it most but found it would happen in Mail as well. Unfortunately the only solution involved logging out and back in, to the best of my memory... or restarting (aka 'warm booting').


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Different Issue

by Professional_Tourist - 1/2/10 5:00 PM

In Reply to: hmmmm... by friedchikkin

Thanks for the reply friedchikkin, but that issue sounds like you got switched into overstrike mode, rather than being in insert mode. A different sort of issue. My issue involves text becoming highlighted (selected) due to an inadvertent keypress, and then the highlighted text gets deleted as I continue typing. I may never figure this one out. . . .


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Text accidentally highlights and deletes

by clarkkwilliams - 10/12/10 7:06 AM

In Reply to: Text accidentally highlights and deletes by Professional_Tourist

I have had the same issue for years and always thought I would eventually recreate in slow motion so that I could discover the cause but have not. I am currently on a MacBook Pro 15 but this started well before this device.


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My thought

by sturner--2008 - 10/12/10 11:00 AM

In Reply to: Text accidentally highlights and deletes by Professional_Tourist

is that your fingers are sweeping the trackpad and selecting the text.


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You got it.

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 10/12/10 11:07 AM

In Reply to: My thought by sturner--2008

While not funny we had to video tape one user to prove the dangling thumb issue.

For Windows I suggest a search for TOUCHFREEZE.

I thought the Apple OS had such a feature but don't know.
Bob


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