Don't know if it's the same problem, but I cannot type french accentuated characters in text frames (Scribus 1.3 cvs). Typing a accentuated e (?) or a (?) makes the properties palette disappear or appear. Looks like accentuated characters are assigned to a shortcut. Typing these characters in the story editor works fine.
If I go in the shortcut and try to assign "?" it says it is already assigned... Tried to find the code responsible for default shortcuts but could'nt find it... jb
