problems overwriting text?

[TraciC]

Hello,
I keep encountering a strange problem when typing quickly: suddenly, I end up overwriting the last character instead of moving along. As I say this happens when I'm typing quickly (I'm a pretty fast typist but not blinding); I don't know if I've bumped the trackpad or accidently swiped the fn, cntrl, alt or apple/cmd keys... It has happened in OpenOffice and in Mail, and the real problem is I don't really know how to get out of it! All I can do is randomly hit keys (as gently as I can as the anger builds) and tap the trackpad, try to highlight/delete some other text and then retype. Does anyone know what I might be doing to cause this?

I'm on a brand spanking new MacBook Pro and haven't had a decent laptop in a long time so like I say, maybe I'm hitting some weird combination of keys. But as you might imagine it's incredibly frustrating.

Thanks for your help!

-Traci

[ElDiabloConCaca]

In the System Preferences, under Trackpad, try enabling "Ignore accidental trackpad input."

[TraciC]

Oh ha ha ha that's absolutely hilarious. Or just rude, depending on how you look at it.

Accidentally hitting the trackpad and highlighting some text would be one thing, but that's unlikely to be what is really happening, since the final letter *continues* being replaced after I click elsewhere in the document and then go back to try to finish the word/sentence/paragraph.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

I don't know if I've bumped the trackpad...

Explain to me again how my suggestion of checking out that System Preference option from you saying you may be accidentally hitting the trackpad is either ridiculous and/or rude, taking into account your own, quoted words above?

I have no idea how much computer experience you have, since you failed to state so. We encounter users here who barely know how to use a mouse all the way through professional programmers who control computers and write code with Jedi mind control. If you're a power-user and know the ins and outs of Mac OS X quite well, state so... otherwise, we have to assume you have little experience and have simply overlooked a minor preference or something (because it would seem ridiculous and rude to try and explain something in "power-user" terms to someone who doesn't know what "LCD" stands for). We have to start at square one, as I'm sure you understand, unless otherwise given indication that we can talk "tech."

Is the problem, say, you're typing along in a sentence like, "Hello, I think this place is ridiculous and rude," and then, all of a sudden, the cursor will not move forward, instead replacing the final 'e' character with whatever characters you're typing over and over again? Just trying to get a better understanding of what's going on.

The only other thing I can suggest at this point is to check what settings are enabled in the "Universal Access" pane of the System Preferences -- specifically, things like "Sticky Keys" and "Slow Keys" under the "Keyboard" pane. Perhaps one of the assistive features of OS X is interfering with your fast typing.

[TraciC]

is the problem, say, you're typing along in a sentence like, "Hello, I think this place is ridiculous and rude," and then, all of a sudden, the cursor will not move forward, instead replacing the final 'e' character with whatever characters you're typing over and over again? Just trying to get a better understanding of what's going on.

yes, exactly, and it's just happened again, in Mail, and took ages to stop. I had to put in a hard return to be able to type any more. I really don't think it's related to typing speed, and I have checked and rechecked all my trackpad and accessibility settings to see if they are causing the problem.

If it helps, I'm no expert but I can understand and write simple (!) shell scripts and I have been using either a mac or a pc running linux for about 5 years. I'm not too au fait with the specialities of most of the mac programmes, though.

Sorry to have jumped on you before, but 'ignore accidental trackpad input' *had* to be meant as a joke!

-Traci