Keyboard shortcuts don't "stick" with multiple keymappings

Bug #310000 reported by Michael Gundlach
22
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-control-center (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Low
Unassigned
Declined for Jaunty by Sebastien Bacher

Bug Description

============= Summary ==============

The Keyboard Shortcuts app changes its interpretation of my shortcuts after a reboot. I must change a shortcut from A to B and back to A again in order to make it behave properly once again -- until the next reboot.

========== The Setup =============

Using Wubi Intrepid Ibex on a Windows XP newish Lenovo Thinkpad. I installed Ibex using Qwerty, because Wubi doesn't offer an alternative; then I added US Dvorak layout and set it to default in Gnome. My physical keyboard is a Qwerty.

I want two keyboard shortcuts:
 - Ctrl-Shift-F in dvorak (the physical Y key) to open Firefox
 - Ctrl-Shift-S in dvorak (the physical : key) to open Gnome Terminal

I have found that I have to use the physical mapping in the Keyboard Shortcut application for this to work: Ctrl-Shift-Y and Ctrl-Shift-: . I set those, close the Keyboard Shortcut application, and hit the physical Y key (F in dvorak) to open Firefox, and hit the physical : key (S in dvorak) to open Gnome Terminal, and I'm happy enough.

========== The Problem ============

When I reboot my computer, one of the two keyboard shortcuts has moved. The Keyboard Shortcuts app still lists Ctrl-Shift-Y and Ctrl-Shift-: , and pressing the physical Y key still opens Firefox.

However, I must press Ctrl-Shift-"physical Z key", which is Dvorak ":", in order to open Gnome Terminal. It's like the Keyboard Shortcuts app understands that Ctrl-Shift-: should now be interpreted as Dvorak, while Ctrl-Shift-Y should be interpreted as Qwerty.

If I go into Keyboard Shortcuts and reassign Gnome Terminal to a new hotkey (say Ctrl-Shift-U), close it, reopen it, and reassign Gnome Terminal to Ctrl-Shift-: again, and close it, then I am again able to hit the physical : key (S in dvorak) to open Gnome Terminal.

Revision history for this message
Michele Mangili (mangilimic) wrote :

Thank you for reporting this issue and helping to make Ubuntu better!

I'm moving this report to gnome-control-center.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

to send to bugzilla.gnome.org by somebody who has a similar configuration or understand the layout description and how it's supposed to work exactly

Changed in gnome-control-center:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
importance: Undecided → Low
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

what ubuntu version do you use? did you send the bug to GNOME?

Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Michael Gundlach (michaeltherobot) wrote : Re: [Bug 310000] Re: Keyboard shortcuts don't "stick" with multiple keymappings

From my original repro:

> ========== The Setup =============
>
> Using Wubi Intrepid Ibex on a Windows XP newish Lenovo Thinkpad.

No, I didn't send the bug to GNOME; your previous text "to send to
bugzilla.gnome.org" sounded like you were triaging the bug, not telling me
to refile the bug myself. Are you asking me to refile the bug myself?

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:06 AM, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:

> what ubuntu version do you use? did you send the bug to GNOME?
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-control-center (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> --
> Keyboard shortcuts don't "stick" with multiple keymappings
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/310000
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

somebody having the issue should open a bug on GNOME so the software writters will read it there

Revision history for this message
Michael Gundlach (michaeltherobot) wrote :

IMHO, the user shouldn't have to refile the bug. If a bug gets reported to
Ubuntu by a user who doesn't know exactly what component is at fault, and
Ubuntu responds with "you filed it wrong, file it over here instead", the
user is more likely to drop the subject than do the volunteer work: thus the
bug report is wasted.

I appreciate you volunteering to improve Ubuntu, Sebastien -- it just seems
that volunteers like yourself are exactly the people who could be triaging
bugs, saying "Thanks for the bug report, user, we'll take care of it"
instead of hoping for more user action.

I already went through the pain of making a Launchpad acct to file this bug
-- I'm not going to bother making a GNOME account and figure out their
process just to resubmit it. Thanks anyway!

Michael

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 8:46 AM, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:

> somebody having the issue should open a bug on GNOME so the software
> writters will read it there
>
> --
> Keyboard shortcuts don't "stick" with multiple keymappings
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/310000
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

> IMHO, the user shouldn't have to refile the bug.

nobody said that the submitter has to do that

> "you filed it wrong, file it over here instead", the user is more likely to drop the subject than do the volunteer work: thus the bug report is wasted.

that's not what was stated there

> bugs, saying "Thanks for the bug report, user, we'll take care of it"

well, we are not writting the software, I don't understand the issue, doesn't the code and would not know how to trigger it or what to say to the people writting the software if they have a question, so the bug is waiting for somebody having a clue or the issue to pick it up and send it to GNOME, that's doesn't have to be the submitter but somebody need to do it!

Revision history for this message
Michael Gundlach (michaeltherobot) wrote :

I see what you were saying and I misunderstood you. Thanks for clarifying!
- Michael

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:42 AM, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>wrote:

> > IMHO, the user shouldn't have to refile the bug.
>
> nobody said that the submitter has to do that
>
> > "you filed it wrong, file it over here instead", the user is more
> likely to drop the subject than do the volunteer work: thus the bug
> report is wasted.
>
> that's not what was stated there
>
> > bugs, saying "Thanks for the bug report, user, we'll take care of it"
>
> well, we are not writting the software, I don't understand the issue,
> doesn't the code and would not know how to trigger it or what to say to
> the people writting the software if they have a question, so the bug is
> waiting for somebody having a clue or the issue to pick it up and send
> it to GNOME, that's doesn't have to be the submitter but somebody need
> to do it!
>
> --
> Keyboard shortcuts don't "stick" with multiple keymappings
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/310000
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Revision history for this message
Johannes Dahl (surreal) wrote :

I've researched this behaviour in some detail and would like to help in solving this bug. I would open a new bug in GNOME bugzilla, but I don't know what to file it against, so I'd like to discuss the bug here first.

I have had this problem for a while and have even filed a couple of bug reports, but the conclusions I had drawn then were inaccurate. By using a more systematic approach to testing this and by actually writing down the results, I think I have narrowed the issue down quite a bit now, though.

To reproduce this problem, all conditions have to be met:
Use autologin. If you happen to log out and in again through GDM, the bug "stops working" and expected behaviour ensues.
The first keyboard layout has to have keys that differ from those of standard US QWERTY keyboard, e.g. US Dvorak. That's where the symptoms arise -- shortcuts using these keys.
The user's keyboard layout(s) have to exactly match (those of) the system's. In other words, after selecting the user's keyboard layout(s), apply the layout settings system-wide (there should be a button in keyboard preferences for that).

The symptoms, should you get the above right:
Shortcuts get triggered (the first step of two, if you will) when pressing the key combination as it would appear on QWERTY layout (expected behaviour: Dvorak keys should trigger the shortcuts). Then they get handled (step two) by either Metacity (e.g. run terminal) or Gnome-Settings-Daemon (e.g. run web browser).
Metacity handles the key combination as if pressed on QWERTY, so the shortcut sort of works, it just isn't on the right key.
G-S-D handles the key combination as pressed on whatever layout you are actually using, complicating matters. Generally the shortcut doesn't work, but it might, like in this example: You use Dvorak layout. You have ctrl+u set as shortcut 1 and ctrl+g (which corresponds to ctrl+u on qwerty) as shortcut 2. Shortcut 2 effectively works as expected.

So, where should this bug go? As I said, I wouldn't mind reporting it in GNOME Bugzilla if I just knew what component to file it against.

Revision history for this message
Joseph Lansdowne (j49137) wrote :

I'm getting it without autologin; and I'm not sure whether referring to the US QWERTY keyboard has intended significance, but it's the same with UK.

That two systems are handling different shortcuts in different ways quite nicely explains why some shortcuts outright don't work, some seem to use the same physical keys in both layouts, and some use different physical keys that refer to the same letters. I suppose, assuming this is all as you say it is, that the solution would be to get the systems to work in the same way - to get one or the other to change?

Revision history for this message
Johannes Dahl (surreal) wrote :

It's interesting that you are hitting the bug without autologin. My theory so far has been that GDM does something to make the bug go away, but apparently that does not happen in your case. Maybe that's because we're using different versions? I'm running Lucid Lynx on my computer with GDM version 2.30.0-0ubuntu5, what about you?

I don't think the distinction between US and UK QWERTY is particularly important. Where I mentioned standard US QWERTY, I was guessing that this would be the fallback / hard-coded keymap that erroneously gets used when triggering hotkeys.

I think I'll leave figuring out a solution for people who know the inner workings of the software in question, but I did figure out a work-around that at least hides the problem in my case: I set my system keyboard layout to "Estonia Dvorak" and user's layout to "Estonia Dvorak" and "Estonia US keyboard with Estonian letters". Whereas before both system and user's layouts were like the current user's layout, now they differ between themselves and the bug does not manifest.

I hope this helps.

Revision history for this message
Joseph Lansdowne (j49137) wrote :

Okay, this is very weird. I previously had both layouts (UK and UK Dvorak with UK punctuation) in the Layout tab in Keyboard Preferences, and things were as previously described. I removed UK and set Dvorak to the system layout, then a few weeks later (now), added UK back (so both are there again) and set it to the system layout.

Now, even after restarting and logging out and in, all shortcuts work identically in both layouts, with regard to the physical keys; that is, some don't work at all, but all the ones that do are the same in both layouts. What's more, if I set Dvorak to the system layout (and restart), the keys are still the same as before - the physical ctrl-alt-f is still ctrl-alt-f. So it's suddenly just not changing at all.

This is just confusing me.

Revision history for this message
Johannes Dahl (surreal) wrote :

For the record, my workaround involves setting system and user layouts to be _different_ from each other.

But that might be a moot point. I don't know what caused this (I don't remember doing anything other than installing chromium-browser and messing around with Gnome default browser setting), but the workaround stopped working, at least partially -- Metacity shortcuts work, g-s-d ones don't. Logging out and in again still hides the bug, so I will turn off autologin as another work-around for now.

Revision history for this message
Chris Kahn (chris-a-kahn) wrote :

Having a very similar problem in Gnome. Certain keyboard shortcuts do not respond when I change from standard US to Dvorak using "Keyboard Preferences" in the menu. To completely change layouts from standard to Dvorak, I have to move "USA Dvorak" to the top of the list of layouts in Keyboard Preferences, then log out, then change keyboard to Dvorak on the login screen, then log in. (I never use autologin.)

Revision history for this message
MilkaJinka (milkajinka) wrote :

Looks like a duplicate of bug #204202

Revision history for this message
Johannes Dahl (surreal) wrote :

I disagree, for what it's worth. In #204202, the problem is with in-program shortcuts (ctrl+z to suspend current job in Terminal) working in an unexpected way while here we are dealing with desktop shortcuts (super+t to launch Terminal) not working. Perhaps the cause is the same or close enough, but wouldn't the symptoms have to be more similar in order to really call the bug reports duplicates? That's not a rhetorical question -- I actually don't, but would like to, know.

Revision history for this message
Rolf Leggewie (r0lf) wrote :

Is this still an issue in the later versions of Ubuntu (bionic comes to mind)?

Revision history for this message
Paul White (paulw2u) wrote :

Bug report did not expire due to assignment
Last comment re issue was over 12 years ago
No reply to comment #18 so closing

Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu):
assignee: Ubuntu Desktop Bugs (desktop-bugs) → nobody
status: Incomplete → Invalid
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