Ok, I will try to break down the issue. Hope I make it clear.
- My keyboard layout is set to "US, alternative international".
- The thing with that layout, and most layouts intended for languages with accented letters, is that the quote keys are used to add accents to letters. To get the character "é", I first type the character for single quote and follow it with a regular "e". Double quote followed by "e" gets you "ë". The same thing applies for tilde and the "back accent" (Crasis). With that you are able to type pretty much everything: áãàäéëíóõöüúüöçñ.
- Because of this composability, the way to way get a quote (or tilde or crasis) is by typing the key you want and follow it with <spacebar>. If you just press the key for quote, the system will be waiting for the next key to figure out what you actually want.
- Here is the bug, I think:
1) the javascript on the "enhanced text editor" has a handler for the "key-press, code 48" event, that is fired whenever I press the "quotation" key.
2) the handler inserts/manipulates the textarea in any way, by moving the cursor or inserting text in the text area.
3) This manipulation of the text area resets the input buffer, and now there is no sign that I actually pressed the key.
4) when I try to complete my intended input (i.e, when I press <spacebar> to actually get the single-quote char), there is no sign of the previously pressed key, and all I get is a space.
I don't know if this is the exact mechanics of the bug. I just know that this is not the first time that I've tried to type single-quotes in a "web-based text-editor" and I get a space instead.