set default keyboard layout shortcut to Alt + Shift

[yurik81]

subj

[Tobias Jost (tjost)]

Hello,

Thanks for your bug report. But don't really understand the problem. Would you mind to clarify the issue you are experiencing?

[Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount)]

yurik,

please stop filing bugs without a proper description.

Apart from that: »a paper cut is a trivially fixable usability bug that the average user would encounter in default installation of Ubuntu or Kubuntu Desktop Edition.« – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut

Since this would not be encountered by the average user (who is neither that keen on shortcuts nor uses more than 1 keyboard layout) it can not be addressed as part of this project.

[Dylan McCall (dylanmccall)]

I believe the rationale here would be that it's consistent with Windows' default. Personally, that default was the bane of my existence when I worked in computer retail because customers would inevitably phone wondering why “?” was suddenly giving them “É” and the like. That Alt+Shift shortcut is really easy to trigger accidentally, because it can be triggered with a single slipped finger (or an attempt to use Alt Tab) while holding shift — probably the most frequently held modifier key.

We have the advantage that Ubuntu doesn't have pesky OEMs installing three keyboard layouts by default that the vast majority of people don't need or want, but adopting that shortcut does bring us a step closer to developing the same problem Windows does down the road.

Having said that, the default Keyboard Preferences could be more helpful in this regard. The graphical layout switcher is guaranteed to be visible in the event it does anything. However, setting (or even finding) a keyboard shortcut for changing layout involves clicking a vaguely labelled “Options” button and poking through an enormous list of vaguely categorized check boxes.

That's an enhancement request, though, and probably already written somewhere.