Version 6.0 running under Win 7 - non-alphabetic characters typed appear as something other than what I typed -- É for question mark for example.
Forward slash appears as lower case e-acute é, question mark as upper-case É. Some, not all shifted numerals also map differently. Shift-3 for instance is forward slash instead of hash symbol.
I played around with character sets - various unicode and western sets - this resolved the problem in an earlier FF version, even after I`d reverted to what I started out with ( I can`t even remember what the default is now.) It was also suggested elsewhere in this forum that the problem could be resolved using the Region and Language settings in Windows Control Panel. This is obviously wrong, because the keyboard is working fine in other applications. It was also suggested I try to resolve by activating the language toolbar in the taskbar, but the option doesn`t even show up so I assume it was never installed. My judgement this problem is definitely not OS, but Firefox.
All Replies (3)
See:
- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306993 - HOW TO: Use the Language Bar in Windows XP
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/The-Language-bar-overview - The Language bar (overview)
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/The-Language-bar-overview The Language bar (overview)
It is possible that you have switched the keyboard layout by accident.
Windows remembers that setting per application.
- Make sure that you have the Language bar visible on the Windows Taskbar.
- You can do that via the right-click context menu of the Taskbar: Toolbars > Language Bar.
- Check the keyboard language (keyboard layout) setting for the application that has focus via the icon on the Language bar.
- You need to do that while Firefox has focus because Windows remembers the keyboard layout setting per application.
- The default keys to rotate the layout is a combination (Ctrl+Shift or Alt+Shift) that can easily be used in Firefox to activate a menu item.
- To avoid an unintentional switch assign a specific key sequence (Alt/Ctrl+Shift+number) to select keyboard layouts and remove the key combination to rotate layouts (Alt+Shift or Ctrl+Shift)
- Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Keyboards and Languages > Change keyboards > Advanced key settings > Change key sequence
I couldn't see any language toolbar option on my taskbar, so that solution was a non-starter. Anyway, the problem has now gone away after a cold boot. Chalk it up to a minor glitch that was more annoying than anything else.
It will happen again if there is a shortcut sequence enabled to switch the keyboard layout.
Firefox and Firefox extensions have a lot of menu shortcuts that use the default sequence Ctrl+Shift or Alt+Shift and each time you use such a shortcut you may get that other layout selected.
So you need to check that out in the Control Panel and disable that layout switch feature to prevent that from happening.
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/The-Language-bar-overview The Language bar (overview)
- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258824 - How to change your keyboard layout