^H is overloaded. do you guys not use backspace?

[keen99]

What version of Code is running?

code 0.2.152

Which model were you using?

n/a

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 23.3.0 arm64 arm - macos 14.3 with iterm2

What steps can reproduce the bug?

open it up.

type words.

hit backspace.

get help instead of ....backspace.

^H is backspace.

What is the expected behavior?

No response

What do you see instead?

No response

Additional information

No response

[just-every-code]

@keen99 Thanks for calling this out — you’re absolutely right that on iTerm2/macOS, Backspace often sends Ctrl+H (^H), which made Help pop up instead of deleting. Great catch!

We’ve changed the Help shortcut from Ctrl+H to F1 so Backspace works normally while you type. The footer and Help panel now show “F1,” and you can close Help with F1 again or Esc.

You can try it now in the preview build:

code preview backspace-help-conflict

Once it’s running, type a bit and press Backspace — it should delete as expected. Press F1 to open Help, then F1 or Esc to close it.

Would love to hear how it feels on your setup! If everything looks good, maintainers will review and, if merged, you’ll get an update here. Thanks again!

[zemaj]

@keen99 After looking closer, I’m going to keep Help on Ctrl+H and undo the F1 change. The reason: iTerm2 (and most terminals) ship with Backspace sending DEL the ^H behavior only appears when “Delete sends ^H” is enabled, which iTerm labels as a legacy compatibility toggle. Supporting that non-default mode by default would force everyone to relearn the Help key, so I’d rather keep the common-case behavior stable.

If you need Backspace to emit DEL instead of ^H, you can untick Preferences → Profiles → Keys → “Delete sends ^H” and the Help shortcut won’t interfere. If you do rely on ^H, you can remap Help in your config (either rebind the shortcut or disable it).

Appreciate the report, though!

[keen99]

never have i ever. well, dead software .

[keen99]

^H is Backspace. Always has been.

• ASCII: Control-H (0x08) = BS (Backspace), defined as “move the print position one character backwards.”
  Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backspace

• Delete (DEL, 0x7F): originally “rubout” on paper tape, later used as forward delete.
  Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delete_character

• POSIX / stty: the erase character can be set to ^H or ^?. Both appear in the wild, but ^H is the canonical Backspace.
  Reference: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/stty.html

The entire Unix/Linux ecosystem has treated ^H as Backspace for decades. If your app binds ^H to “help” (or anything else) instead of erase, then the Backspace key is broken for anyone whose terminal sends ^H.

The fix is simple: normalize both ^H and ^? to erase. Don’t hijack ^H. Doing so makes the Backspace key unusable.

[keen99]

if you want a help shortcut, ^G is pretty common for help. (we wont even get into the pain of F keys on mac)

[keen99]

maybe, just maybe, consider that codex's key mapping is actually decent before you overwrite it: ^a ^e ^w ^k ^u all work fine in codex - to be fair, yank fails (^y).

[keen99]

you can remap Help in your config (either rebind the shortcut or disable it)

@zemaj where? as best as I and codex can find, there is no configuration in codex or code for this.

[zemaj]

Totally get your frustration. We may change the binding in the future. Unfortunately there's a thousand different setups people have and it's tough to make decisions that won't negatively affect some portion of users. But I will keep this in mind when we go through our mapping again next time.

In iTerm2, to change the mapping:
1. Open iTerm2 → Preferences (⌘+,).
2. Go to Profiles → select your profile (likely “Default”) → Keys tab.
• At the bottom, change the Presets dropdown to Natural Text Editing. This makes Backspace behave normally.
3. Still in Preferences, go to the top-level Keys tab.
• Look for a shortcut bound to ⌃H (Ctrl+H). If you see one, delete it (select it and press the minus button) or reassign it.

Close Preferences, open a new terminal, and test Backspace — it should now delete text instead of opening Help.