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The "Character Viewer" or CharacterPalette.app is the thing that shows you unicode characters and available fonts. I'd like to know:

  1. Is it possible to interact with this app using the keyboard? So far, when I've tried, the answer is 'no' - it only accepts mouse interactions. For example, I'd like to use the arrow keys or quit out of it with Command-q
  2. Can this app be kept open without it being in the foreground? When I open it, it sits in front of all other applications.

Related: Is it possible to use the character map as a standalone app?

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I didn't find any hidden preferences for it with strings /System/Library/Input\ Methods/CharacterPalette.app/Contents/MacOS/CharacterPalette| grep -E '^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]{10,80}$' | sort | uniq. I also tried some variations of defaults write com.apple.helpviewer NormalWindow -bool true (which used to make Help Viewer windows not stay on top in 10.6 and earlier), but they didn't seem to have any effect. – Lauri Ranta Jul 25 '12 at 22:08

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