Hi Ben,
I think, instead, that this Linux feature is turning "^2" into the
Unicode superscripted 2 character
I'm guessing this is more likely a keyboard layout feature, and could
happen in any OS. Specifically, a "dead keys" type layout where some
physical keys don't provide any output until a subsequent key (or
series) is pressed. I'm not sure of course, w/out knowing what your
affected users actually experience, but it seems more likely than an
OS-wide feature (that's why layouts exist in thee first place, after all).
If that's the case, I'm not sure your application can do anything about
it (literally, since it won't see the "^" key being pressed at all). I
guess you could filter for Unicode superscript numerals and convert them
back... but that seems awkward and error prone, and might not be the
only case that causes issues with different layouts.
Some languages require those types of layouts, though sometimes there
are alternative layouts available (eg. geared more towards programmers).
Other user-side workarounds are to type two "^" characters in a row
(should output a literal "^") or add a space between caret and number
(more readable code anyway ;-) ).
I'd certainly be curious to know if dead keys aren't the issue here.
Cheers,
-Max
Ithaca, NY
On 7/24/2026 3:45 PM, Ben Haller via Interest wrote:
Hi all! I've got a Qt project that contains a code editor. The code
editor is based on QPlainTextEdit, with a bit of subclassing for
syntax highlighting and things of that sort -- code editor-y
functionality. I doubt any of that subclassing is relevant to the
question at hand.
In the language being edited, ^ is the exponentiation operator, so the
user wants to type "x^2" and have that mean "x squared" in the
language on question. An issue recently arose where some of my users
on Linux would type the "^2" and it would be turned into a
superscripted 2 (!). I guess this is some Linux feature to make it
easier to type exponents and such. Which is fine, but obviously
inappropriate for a code editor; the user needs to be able to type
"^2" and have it stay "^2" even if, in other apps on that platform, it
appropriately gets changed to a superscipted 2.
Note that the QPlainTextEdit is plain text, of course; I don't think
this is rich text somehow creeping into the plain text view. I think,
instead, that this Linux feature is turning "^2" into the Unicode
superscripted 2 character (https://unicode-explorer.com/c/00B2).
My question: how can I customize my QPlainTextEdit subclass to prevent
this? Is there a hook or a setting somewhere? I assume that, e.g.,
Qt Creator manages to prevent these kinds of shenanigans on all
platforms, so maybe I'm asking somebody who knows the Qt Creator code
well to advise on what they did there. It is quite possible that these
users could turn off this feature in a Linux prefs panel somewhere,
but I don't want to ask them to have to do that; they should be able
to have the OS feature enabled, and yet I should be able to turn it
off in my code view. I'd also like to not interfere with typing of
accented characters, emojis, etc.; I just want to prevent this
specific feature from activating in my code view, because the '^'
character is significant and I don't want it to be re-interpreted by
the OS
Thanks for any tips!
Cheers,
-B.
Benjamin C. Haller
Messer Lab
Cornell University
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