Make control-h backspace in TextMate

In macOS, ^h (AKA control + h or ctrl h) will usually delete backward one character, i.e. do the same thing as backspace or what Apple labels delete on its keyboards. Therefore it’s somewhat disconcerting that ^h in TextMate runs “Documentation for Word” or similar “Documentation for Current Word” actions.

Here’s how to disable the default control-h behaviour in TextMate 2.0, and get backspace behaviour instead.

From the menu bar, click Bundles > Select Bundle Item.

screenshot of TextMate Select Bundle Item dialog

From the gear menu in the “Select Bundle Item” dialog, select “Key Equivalent”.

TextMate Select Bundle Item dialog searching for ^h key equivalent

In the search box, press ^h.

Then for each of the matching documentation actions (there may be several from different bundles), click “edit” then clear the “Key equivalent” field in the side drawer. Close the bundles window and save.

screenshot of the TextMate bundle editor

Repeat the previous step for any other bundles that define a documentation action for ^h.