Default Right Alt keyboard shortcut moves cursor one character back, can't type accents. How to disable?

Anki Help
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Anki version:
Version ⁨24.06.3 (d678e393)⁩
Python 3.9.18 Qt 5.15.2 PyQt 5.15.5

When reviewing cards with a fill in answer, the Right Alt key will move the cursor one character back (…what?). This is a default option, and I can’t find a way to disable or change it. How can I do so?

On all my machines, the compose key for typing accents (ł, ą, etc.) has always been Right Alt. So when reviewing a card with an answer “ktoś” I will end up typing “ktśo” and get the answer marked wrong.

This strange keyboard shortcut is blocking me from studying all fill in the blank cards. Any help would be appreciated.

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I’ve tried this add on, but it didn’t work. My physical keyboard has a Right Alt key, but my keyboard layout on my desktop sees it as a “ISO Level3 Shift” key. Not An Alt-Gr key.

This issue completely blocks me from using Anki, or at least on my desktop. Assigning a popular modifier key to any hotkey (and especially having no way to disable it) is very bad practice.

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  • Does this happen only in type-answer boxes, or everywhere in Anki?
  • Does this happen with other keyboard layouts? [I wasn’t able to reproduce it, but your reproducible case didn’t have a lot of specifics.]

I suspect that this – like most things related to reading keypresses – is something that Qt is doing, not Anki.

I see that you’re using Qt5. Is there a reason for that? I can’t tell you if this is a Qt “bug” that might be fixed in Qt6 – or a limitation that wouldn’t be fixed. But it’s certainly worth investigating and moving to a Qt6 variant if you can. Install & Upgrade - Anki Manual

If you can’t or don’t want to shift to Qt6, because Qt is so widely used, you might find more advice for how to deal with Qt-based apps and your particular keyboard, if you cast a wider net.

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Your suggestion was very helpful, as it does look like Qt could be a culprit, and I couldn’t find any such keyboard shortcut when combing through Anki.

A user on the github page for R Studio was mentioning a similar problem. R Studio also uses Qt. He was using xrdp on Linux to remote into a machine with a German keyboard layout. Right Alt keps moving the cursor left one character, same as me. This is almost my exact setup, so no wonder you weren’t able to reproduce it.

There is no stable release of Dt6 available for my system, and it’s not guaranteed to fix the problem or even be the correct source of the problem. So I will re-make the fill in the blank cards to just be the standard text cards and move on.

Thanks again for your post.

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