And it doesn’t only relate to Tinderbox. It isn’t consistently available in all apps and all contexts.
For instance, in Tinderbox, it will work on a map note’s title, but it won’t work in the note’s text pane itself. I’d like it to work there – it’s handy for all the times I want to type antidisestablishmentarianism.
Anyone know the answer? Thanks in advance.
One can assign custom shortcuts to any app on macOS via system preferences (in case an app has duplicate menu names use the path to the menu item you want)
That’s up to you, it’s your mac and you’re free to make it do what you want 
I’ve never come across this, but it seems it was a silent addition to make frameworks in OS 10.6+, see keyboard - Autocomplete for MacOS - Ask Different. In my System Prefs the suggested setting is ‘off’ but the auto-complete you describe works in some parts of Tinderbox. It’s less to do with the map vs text as whether you are typing in a text input box such as the title ($Name) edit box in any view pane, or in the Inspector or other dialogs.
The main text space is a different thing and not a simple input box, which is likely why the behaviour is different - i.e. the ‘box’ doesn’t use the same underlying framework elements , or they’re configured differently. I’d suggest you email Eastgate, explaining your need.
As a side observation, I’d note that with a move towards a ‘soft’ escape key on some Mac keyboards, perhaps Opt+Esc may not remain a got shortcut for this functionality. I tend to use TextExpander for expansions as auto-expansions can be a bit hit-and-miss in their behaviour.
The two autocomplete shortcuts work fine on keyboards with the esc key in the touch bar. @doublem is correct – autocomplete is not working in the text area. Autocomplete works in TextEdit’s text area, in Drafts, etc. Just speculating here, but possibly in Tinderbox it is “suppressed” (not by design) because Tinderbox is monitoring text entry for quick links, which uses a popover similar to autocomplete’s popover?
Thanks for that. I don’t own anything fancy enough to have a touch bar so couldn’t check. My new 2019 MBAir has a physical Escape key, and when at a desk I work from an external keyboard with ‘all the keys’. 
Whilst I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, this does read a little harshly. @doublem’s observation is true, as ‘Apple’ autocomplete does work in some parts of Tinderbox but not in the text pane (i.e. $Text). I think @PaulWalters’ observation probably points to why it doesn’t work in $Text. It may be the necessary existing functionality of the Text pane means it can’t enable the Os’ autocomplete but it does seem a fair question to ask.
At the same time, you are absolutely right to make the point that users can make their own shortcuts. Something we all too often overlook until we try it for the first time.
Thanks @mwra – will do. I think it must be a framework thing, given that I’ve noticed the behaviour also varies in other apps.
Yeah, I’m yet to go touchbar. I was wondering about that as well.
I expect that, under the hood, autocomplete works on NSTextField’s, which are meant for small text controls, and not on NSTextView’s, which are meant for larger and more flexible text layout and editing. But I’m guessing; I’ll find out.
You’re right, didn’t want to sound harsh. And I did not read well enough what @doublem asked for, sorry for that.
The feature works in TextEdit, but not in Mellel or Word, FWIW.
We’re looking into extending this support in the text pane. Thanks.
All good! In the history of internet misunderstandings, it’s way down the scale!
Great! Thanks for having a look at this.
Opening up the conversation again after 4 years. The Autocomplete behaves erratically. On some attributes, a dropdown autocomplete appears. On others attributes in the same note, it does not. Opt+Esc always seems to work, although it’s a mighty clunky keyboard shortcut. Just wondering if there are some tips or tricks to make autocomplete always work in TBX, without having to resort to the clunky shortcut. Thanks!
Welcome back. As it has been a while it is worth checking the notes about auto-complete, which record what is known/published about its use.
Politely, that’s a bit broad a description to respond to. To which input locations/types are you referring. In the case of attributes, it is a $ prefix that triggers attribute name autocompletion. What sort of attribute names are you trying to auto-complete.
That enables OS text auto-complete which is OS-level process and not controlled by Tinderbox as such.
HTH
First, autocomplete is only available for string, list, and set attributes.
Autocomplete is not available for read-only attributes.
Autocomplete is also not available if the resulting menu would be too long to be useful. That is, autocomplete is not available if the list of potential values exceeds a fixed limit. This limit is normally 999, but can be overridden in a config.xml file if you need a different value.
Thank you.