[opensuse] Re: kxkb ---- KDE4 vs. KDE3

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 17:42, Радуле Шошкић <rms@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 07/27/2010 03:15 PM, Dotan Cohen wrote:

On 07/23/2010 03:12 PM, Dotan Cohen wrote:


Thanks Radule. Might one of these be appropriate:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176113
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=204144
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=224489

I also use three keyboard layouts (English, Hebrew, and Russian) and
it drives me nuts to cascade through all of them whenever I switch.


Hi Dotan,

Thanks for such a prompt answer. I can only imagine how huge your effort is,
working on all these bugs and user requests in KDE4.

I am afraid none of the three bugs correspond to what I complained about. At
least, as far as I understood them.


It is this bug which addresses the issue of switching directly to a
particular layout without going through all the others:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=224489

It has the advantage that Latin is not preferred, as is the case for
"Include Latin Layout". With this method, you could jump right from
Serb to Russian and back.


I'll try to give the two scenarios compared. The first one (A) is the old
one - the one that I am happy with. The other one (B) is what is offered
with KDE4 release. Sorry for verbosity, hope you'll read it all patiently :)

(A) KDE3

1- Start kxkb (directly, or through "enable layouts" in Control
Panel/Configure Desktop/Personal Settings/Whatever)... A small US flag
appears in tray.
2- Right-click on the flag, and select "configure"
3- In "layout" tab, tick "enable layouts" checkbox on and add as many
layouts as you like. Note that for each of them you can choose "layout
variant" (drop-down list), "label" (free text edit) and "include latin
layout" (tickbox/checkbox). I choose, for example, one serbian default
layout with label CP, one serbian latinunicode layout with label SR, and one
greek default layout and default label. For all of them I tick "include
latin layout"
4- In "Xkb Options" tab I tick "enable xkb options" on.
5- Then I tick on "Layout switching" and choose "left win-key change layout"
from the underlaying option list
6- I also tick "Use keyboard LED to show alternative layout" and choose
"Scroll lock LED shows alternative layout" option

Note that corresponding command shows up in the editbox below:
"setxkbmap -option grp:lwin_toggle,grp_led:scroll"

Now, I click OK and start using my layouts.

First, I can cycle through my layouts - either by left-clicking on the flag
icon, or by right-clicking menu choice, or by default keyboard shortcut
ctrl-K. In each of the states, the keyboard layout of choice is active - I
can write greek, serbian cyril, serbian latin or us.

But (very important) - while being in any of non-us layouts I can just press
left win-key and my layout is immediatelly changed to latin us. The flag
icon stays unchanged, the layout change is indicated just with scroll lock
LED. When I want to switch back to my original language I press left win-key
again. Here I am back to my CP, SR, GR, whatever.


(B) KDE4.X


Steps 1 to 3 are same or similar, but there is no "include latin layout"
option.
Step 4 is no more "Xkb options" - now it's called "advanced".
Steps 5 and 6 are same/similar

Now, when I use my layouts, I can cycle through "flags" as above, but with
one major difference: left win-key now cycles as well - it shows the same
beaviour as ctrl-K.

So, in KDE4, I lost a very convenient feature. I think it is a bug, because
there is no more use of the "alternate layout" concept... Formerly, every
layout could have an alternete latin us (and keyboard switchable and
configurable). Now this alternate layout is not recognized any more.

I hope this helps you to reproduce the bug. And, yes, I wander whether
contacting the author directly might be of any help with this problem. What
do you think?

Best regards

~rms~



Yes, I am familiar with the issue as I had used "Include Latin Layout"
in the past. Tell me, is there any use case where bug 224489 would not
be appropriate, but "Include Latin Layout" would be?


Last minute update: I just noticed that on my "Factory repo updated" box
(11.1 + KDE 4.4.95) thigs changed even further on. The quick check revealed
that the news are not good - it's just config panels changed their place in
Personal settings, steps to approach them are different, but the bug still
remains. I'll investigate further - but for now I am afraid there is no kxkb
any more - this seems to be just another widget now! Arghh!


I did see that, but it worked fine for me in the few minutes that I
tested it. The only difference was that the flags are outside the
system tray, not inside. This did not bother me. Is there a use case
that I missed? Does it not work well with three languages (I likely
tested only with Latin and Hebrew)?

--
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com
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