The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

4 days ago

A Polish user reported that the letter Ś did not appear when typed on Medium, while other Polish characters worked fine.
The bug was caused by a combination of factors: Polish keyboard layout history, Communist-era computing limitations, ingrained Ctrl+S saving habits, and Windows' internal mapping of Right Alt.
Polish uses the Latin alphabet with nine additional diacritics. Due to limited hardware in the 1980s, a 'programmer's layout' using Alt+key combinations became standard for typing these characters.
Medium had code to block Ctrl+S to prevent the browser's save dialog, but this inadvertently blocked Ctrl+Alt+S, which Windows maps to Right Alt+S (used for typing Ś).
The fix was to modify the code to only block Ctrl+S when the Alt key is not pressed, allowing Ś to be typed via Right Alt+S.
The incident highlights how software often assumes English-language conventions, creating challenges for non-English speakers and writing systems.

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