08-03-2009, 10:19 AM

This is very odd; however, on my MacBook I use at work the backtick key (the symbol under the tilde) doesn't work in Terminal or (as I just discovered) firefox text entry boxes.

It isn't a problem for me in Firefox as when do you really need to use a backtick in a web form. However, it is a HUGE problem in Terminal as I can't assign the results of shell command to a variable when writing a shell script!

The backtick key works just fine in Entourage, IntelliJ (my Java IDE), TweetDeck, etc.

I am puzzled (Google searches haven't given me any solutions/ideas).

Can anyone provide any insight?

(also this issue does not occur on my iMac at home)

08-03-2009, 10:44 PM

Hmm...very strange.

What version of OSX are you using? Also, what type of terminal do you have declared xterm-color, ansi etc? (echo $TERM). You have tried dumping your environment to see if anything jumps out?

When you say 'doesn't work' do you mean that it just doesn't show up on the screen, or it doesn't have the behavior you expect. I would assume the former, but I am just trying to be sure.

08-04-2009, 12:13 PM

Hi! I am running the latest 10.5.7.

My TERM is:

mjparme:~:77> echo $TERM
xterm-color


I use bash as my shell and I do use "set -o vi" so I can use vi at the command line.

And yes by "doesn't work" I mean I press the backtick key and the character is not typed. The tilde key (the shift character of the same key) works just fine.

I am open to any suggestions about what I may be missing, I am totally bamboozled!

03-08-2010, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by mjparme

And yes by "doesn't work" I mean I press the backtick key and the character is not typed. The tilde key (the shift character of the same key) works just fine.

I'm having exactly the same problem, the backtick works in Aquamacs and iTerm, but doesn't work in Terminal and Firefox. I have a Macbook running 10.5.8.

Did you ever manage to find a solution as I'd really like to have backtick working everywhere, especially in Terminal!

03-09-2010, 09:01 AM

Fixed it! I had already been suspicious of the Vi Input Manager plugin and had removed the bundle. I had however forgotten about the DefaultKeyBinding.dict file.

This post gave me the heads up I needed. After I removed the dict file and restarted Terminal.app, I was able to type backticks and tildes into the shell.