Where’s the damn hash key?

Filed under: Adventures of MatBook — by MatBook — 30th June, 2006

I’d been using my MacBook for a few days. Still pretty new to the whole thing, but confident that everything would be as easy as I’d imagined. I wanted to edit some HTML files and opened TextMate. I’m happily editing away the night, when I come to a colour change and need to enter the hash (#) symbol. I scan the keyboard. It’s not in the same place as on a PC, “that’s fine, I’ll just locate it on this Mac keyboard” I think to myself.

A few seconds pass, still no sign of the hash keys. So I start to chuckle to myself, “it must be here somewhere, I’m just not seeing it”. Damn right I’m not seeing it - because it’s not bloody there! I’m now resigned to systematically applying every keystroke combination I can think of.
Luckily this only took about 12 seconds. But it could have been twice as long for somebody half as smart! So for those of you trying to find it yourselves, here it is…

Alt + 3 = #

I don’t understand why it’s hidden in such a way. It’s not like there’s no room for the symbol on the “3” key. The “2” has a third symbol (the euro [€]) on it. Maybe somebody could explain this to me, I’m flummoxed.

2 Responses to “Where’s the damn hash key?”

  1. Nancy Says:

    I would have taken all night to discover that hash! Thanks Matbook

  2. LSF Says:

    Doesn’t seem to work in Windows XP via Bootcamp…

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