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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Keyboard layout in KDE 4
From:       Ben Aceler <aceler () gmail ! com>
Date:       2007-02-23 21:30:06
Message-ID: 200702240030.06879.aceler () gmail ! com
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Non-english speaking users (such as me) are worried about keyboard layouts in 
KDE 4. It was not good in KDE 3, what will be done in KDE 4 about this?

I had a conversation with mr. Iaconelli, he forwarded me here. I am a contact 
person from the Russian KDE team (www.kde.ru) and I can speak from the name 
of our users. Most of they do not speak english, so I am an ambassador 
here :) (If my english is not good too... I am sorry)
 
The problem is, that the layout switching in KDE is too complicated. You have 
at least three ways to do it - using kxkb, using kkbswitch, and using Xorg 
directly. Most of the users uses last way - because the kxkb is not as 
simple, as it seems to be, but Xorg is not the best way - because it 
configures only by root and it is a text config file, not a GUI. But if you 
try to use kxkb - you need to setup it (and the options is untranslated), you 
need to setup switching layot in kxkb, setup switch hotkey in kxkb, and then 
to setup switching hotkey in the "hotkeys" section (!). And if you want to 
set the hotkey to group of modifiers, they will not work as modifiers 
anymore. For example, if you set Ctrl+Shift as hotkey, the hotkeys 
Ctrl+Shift+a will nt work....

Another issue that Ctrl+Shift+K becomes Ctrl+Shift+Л in russian layout, and 
some programs are not working with it.

Also, we have a lots of ideas about layout switching usability. First idea is 
to switch the text cursor lenght as caps 
indicator. The same thing is using in Nokia smartphones - when the cursor is 
long the caps is on, otherwise it is off...
The second - is to put layout indicator near the text cursor. Maybe only when 
keyboard layout switchig, maybe constantly - it need to be tested.

Another idea about layout indicating shown here:
http://www.artgorbunov.ru/bb/ui/cursor/

There are some more ideas, but I think, that this mail is already too long for 
one :)
Am I in the right place?
-- 
mailto://aceler@gmail.com
jabber://aceler@jabber.ru
http://aceler.livejournal.com/
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