Support Umlauts with Option key on MacOS

[breiting]

I just switched from iterm to ghostty, being pretty happy so far! However, I am struggling with one thing for hours now.

I am using a US keyboard and want to write German Umlauts in the terminal. Usually this works with option-a for ä, option-o for ö and option-u for ü (using Karabiner Elements). Although this works perfectly in all other apps (including iterm), I cannot find the proper keybind to get the result. It seems that option-o is bound to any other action, and I cannot find a configuration which solves that problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

[mgenser]

I also struggled with figuring out how to enter umlauts using a US keyboard layout.

While I do not use Karabiner Elements (I use the built-in keybind Option+u followed by the intended character—for example, Option+u followed by a for ä), I suspect our issues are related.

According to the documentation, Option is treated as the Alt key when using a US keyboard layout. After adding the following line to my config file, I was able to enter umlauts as usual:

macos-option-as-alt = false

Note: This might break certain keybinds in your terminal that rely on the Alt key.

[breiting]

Thanks! This does the trick and works perfectly!

[samuelb]

I'm using capslock + [aou] to type umlauts and had the same issue. This fixed it. Thanks!

Btw: iTerm2 has also a option "Treat ⌥ as Alt" under Settings -> Profile -> Keys. However, this doesn't have an effect regarding typing umlauts.

[adaitche]

Thanks @mgenser for pointing out the root cause of the issue. That got me unstuck :).

I implemented a slightly different solution for myself. Remap only the needed subset of keys as follows

keybind = alt+u>u=text:ü
keybind = alt+u>a=text:ä
keybind = alt+u>o=text:ö
keybind = alt+s=text:ß

This has the advantage that other alt+key combinations continue to work in the terminal. For example, I use alt+. quite often and it doesn't work with macos-option-as-alt = false

[stuartcarnie]

Hey all, I'd recommend the following (or right):

macos-option-as-alt = left

With this, your left option key works as an ALT key for the terminal, but your right option key can still operate normally, allowing you to do both.