Empathy contact list defocuses on most keypresses

[Michael Wayne Goodman]

Binary package hint: empathy

I'm running Maverick beta (last updated Sept 27th 2010) with Empathy 2.32.0.

In what appears to be a regression from Lucid, I cannot control the Empathy contact list by the keyboard. I would like to do the following:

1. Press tab to change focus from the buddy list to status settings

2. Select a status from the dropdown list (to be fair, this might not have been available in Lucid)

3. Press enter while a contact is selected to open a chat window with that contact

Currently, while the status text box is focused, I can type a new status and enter it, but I cannot open the dropdown menu. Pressing tab in the status text box changes focus to the buddy list (rather than to the dropdown menu button).

The more serious problem is that, apparently, while the buddy list is focused (e.g. a contact is highlighted) any key besides up and down will defocus the application. I cannot press tab to go back to the status text box, and I cannot press enter to open a chat window with that contact. Even pressing letter or number keys will defocus the application.

This is very annoying for me as I primarily use the keyboard. I would be happy to provide further information and some time debugging.

[Mihai Capotă (mihaic)]

I just upgraded from 10.04 to 10.10 and I noticed the same regression. I used to go online by tabbing to the status drop down list. Now I can't do it any more. The drop down list arrow button cannot be selected.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

gennad is working on the fix

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

i guess nobody is working on this one so unassigning it.. and if any body still having this issue than please let us know..
thanks

[Mihai Capotă (mihaic)]

Fixed in Ubuntu 11.10. Keyboard control works again.