Activation by holding down a key

[nullpainter]

I'm sure this would have been done if it's possible, but it would be wonderful if activation didn't require a key combo and instead could be triggered by holding down a key (like MacOS and all mobile / touch keyboards I have ever seen).

I have very rarely wanted to type aaaaaaaaa.

[damienleroy]

It could be an option to active. Keeping that in mind for a future release.

[JasonNVSD]

+1. We have a lot of former Mac users in our organization who would like to continue using this method. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mh27474/mac

[nyouna]

I have very rarely wanted to type aaaaaaaaa.

Completly agree. More that that, if I want to type aaaaaaaaa, I'll do it with multiple time typing 'a' else there is no way to control the number of repetitions... I think that most of the quick typers are doing the same... In reality I don't know anyone that is using the hold key to repeat it... To add a way to replace the LETTER+SPACE or LETTER+ARROW will be the most useful feature for me that is typing in 3 languages with a QWERTY keyboard...

[80T]

This^^ is exactly what I came here to ask. I was convinced it had to have been asked before and of course.. it's been asked.

I'm not sure if I'm requesting the same exact thing, I think I do, but the behavior that I am looking for is the same as you'd find on most touch keypads like on phones or tablets.. basically replace the key auto-repeat on hold "aaaaaaaaaa... " with the character preview / accent selection. Never have I had the need to constantly hold down keys in order to type repeating characters..

The issue I'm having with the current implementation is that whenever I want to type a bițfaster, I inadvertently end up either pressing space instead of accenting a character, or add an accented character instead of ăregular one followed by a space. (yep, just as it happened right this very sentence.. Twice.. :| )

With hold to bring up the accents, you can take your time and hold down the key as long as you want then release the key whenever you feel sure you've got the right input, thus, you won't have to be quicker to press the activation key faster than the windows auto-repeat key start interval. Currently you do need to make sure you won't set up the activation window longer than the auto-repeat start in Windows Keyboard settings, otherwise, you'll get repeating characters by the time you press the activation key.

Actually, this gives me an idea, the activation key interval could be dynamic, basically reading the Windows value of starting the auto-repeat and set itself to just the first value beneath that (in clock cycles or ms, whatever that value may be counted as.. )

Another little QOL feature in addition to the "hold for accents" pop-up would be to add the plain character itself as the first option in the accents pop-up menu - just in case you've held the key pressed for too long, the menu activated and you've already accidentally pressed the activation key once. Now, with the plain character still in the list, you can quickly cycle back, effectively cancelling the accented character. Right now, unless you delete the accented character and type it again, there's no quick way of correcting the typo.

Long pressing a character without the activation key would now just give you a preview of the available accents, but leave you the option to simply skip them (or cycle back to the plain char should you have made a typo)

[80T]

Well, I've just realized, the auto-repeat is indeed good for one thing only and it's quite commonly used - that is to move the cursor through text.. So, besides navigation keys, Left/Right/Up/Down, etc. the alphanumeric keys could benefit from no auto-repeat. Thing is that can not be ăglobal keyboard setting as it appears.. :|