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I use two keyboard layouts (input sources) in my everyday work - the standard US and Russian-PC. In System Preferences/Language & Text/Input Sources I have activated the "Allow different input source for each document" option. Incidentally, I also have English as the top language in System Pereferences/Language & Text/Languages, even though that is not relevant to this particular problem. I also have Input Menu enabled at login window and experience no problems with that.

However, when launching a new window or application, I can never be sure what language I will start typing in. That's very inconvenient, especially in full-screen apps/windows/modes. I have been unable to determine a consistent pattern of when and why the input source changes or whether it even consistently "sticks" to the an application or window.

Extensive googling and searching through existing q&a here yielded no satisfactory answers. Most confuse the question with the language selection. I have once stumbled on a tip saying that if you press-and-hold the input source switch keyboard shortcut (Cmd-Space in my case), you will get a visual switch cue (which is true), and that the default will "stick" to the value at which you release the keys (which I couldn't prove is working, at least for me, also default for what? current window?)

So the question is - how do I set a systemwide default input source, which will be applied to every new invoked application and its windows?

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Unless I'm misunderstanding, don't you want 'Use the same one in all documents'? Then you get a default and can just change the input source when you need something different. (This, I guess, works best if you are mostly using one input source.) – Nix May 9 '12 at 15:26
That conflicts with my understanding of these two options. AFAIK, if I switch to "use the same in all documents", then a language toggled, say, in a browser window will carry over to a Terminal window I just switched from, causing me to try and type shell commands in Cyrillic when I switch back. So - no, I don't want same one in all documents. I want different input sources possible in different documents, but I want all documents to start from a default one which I can specify. – Michael Bravo May 9 '12 at 16:10

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I asked Seth from CNET about this, and he replied me this article, I'm reading it, wish it will help us!! I use Sougou Input, Chinese Traditional, English and Deutsch, this whole changing game makes me crazy!!

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