Option as Meta "solves" that in prefs. In quotes because Terminal.app makes it apply to both Option keys so you can't have it as modifier to enter special chars

Option as Meta "solves" that in prefs. In quotes because Terminal.app makes it apply to both Option keys so you can't have it as modifier to enter special chars at the same time on the other key (iTerm2 has such an option). This makes that checkbox useless on e.g French layout (which has the pipe, tilde, square brackets, and braces behind Option). Meta+<key> is actually sending ESC char followed by <key char> veryfastantaneously, so ESC+<key> (at almost the same time, and in that order) works, which has saved me from time to time. Also see timeoutlen in vim, keyseq-timeout in inputrc/deadline, maptimeout in screen, and escape-time in tmux.