WIN: with NumLock on, keypad +/- must type chars in text

[Oliv-users]

i am using the 0.42 release and I have two problems
with the text tool on Windows (XP prof sp1):

1- when I type a string containing + or -, the
character is not typed but the view zooms in or out
instead. I think that shorcuts using characters should
be disabled when typing a text (gimp is doing this
right for example).

2- In windows, to access symbols not present on the
keyboard, such as the degree sign °, one can use some
key combinations (alt0176 for the degree sign). This
works in every application (MS Office, Firefox, JabRef,
Matlab, ...) except Inskcape and Gimp. Maybe it is a
GTK/Pango/Whatever bug.

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

1. The keypad + and - are reserved for zoom. To type them in
text, use the keys on the main keyboard.

2. Use Ctrl+U for entering Unicode codes of characters. This
works in Inkscape on every platform and has a convenient
preview in the statusbar. I don't know why Alt+numbers does
not work, but if it is so, this is indeed not our bug
because we don't do anything special to block it. Try to
contact GTK developers about that issue.

[Oliv-users (oliv-users)]

About 1: This is not only wrong, it is only inconsistent:

Wrong:
In gimp too, +/- are used for zoom. But not when typing
text. This bug will hit everyone typing numbers (maybe not
artists but technical/scientific users). When you type a
text, the keyboard keys should produce the character written
on them.

Inconsistent:
Compare with other keys, such as # or `. They are reserved
for the grid display and some zoom (next, previous)
according to the menus. But when typing text, they do work
as expected. And what about the numbers ? when I type "1" or
"3", should inkscape zoom 1:1 or zoom to selection ? Why are
some keys working in text tool and not others ?

Additionally, it is a very surprising option: there are no
entries in the "View" menu for zoom in and zoom out, thus it
is not visible to the user that + and - keys are for these
functions, contrarily to the previously mentioned examples.

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

Comparison with Gimp makes little sense because Gimp does
not use keypad +/- for zoom at all. (Which makes it close to
unusable IMHO.)

Treating these keys specially is justified because zooming,
unlike e.g. enabling grid, is a very basic operation that is
done all the time. Most zoom commands (such as `1') are
shadowed by text tool, but the most basic ones, zoom in and
out, must remain available, especially since you DO have
other ways to type + and - chars. It was a major annoyance
to not be able to zoom when I'm typing text, before I
changed that.

As for Zoom in/out commands in the menu, we'll add them
soon, as was discussed on the mailing list recently.

[Oliv-users (oliv-users)]

>Comparison with Gimp makes little sense because Gimp does
not use keypad +/- for zoom at all. (Which makes it close to
unusable IMHO.)

Gimp key shortcuts can be configured by the user very
easily. On my machine, for instance, keypad + zooms in and
keypad - zoom out. it works perfectly well. I actually tried
before I wrote the bug report.

If you want to zoom when typing text, the mouse is there.
The text tool is associated to the keyboard as input device.
you can use function keys for zooming if you want, becuase
they are not used as character keys, but as function keys,
hence the name.

And zooming when entering text is not such a common
operation. I do not even remember having ever used it. But
typing numerals is something I use on every session.

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

Zooming is perhaps the most common operation of all, text or
no text. And it's certainly much more common than typing
numbers with the keypad. And no, zooming with mouse when I
have my hands on the keyboard sucks, thank you very much.
And of course we can't use function keys for zooming, as
they have no zooming semantics whatsoever and are all used
up for tool switching anyway.

You can try discussing this issue on the mailing list. If
you gather an overwhelming majority in your support, I'll
change it (or rather make it optional).

[Oliv-users (oliv-users)]

Archived mailing-lists are the number 1 source for spammers.
I have been bitten in the past, no thanks.

This is a bug report tool. Call this report "enhancement
request" or "bug report", but this is the place for such a
discussion. Of course, when bugs are closed before being
discussed, there is no way developers can even notice that
such a bug exists. Please reopen the bug, mark it
enhancement request if you want, and mention it on the
mailing-list.

As it is now, Inkscape is not consistent with the platform
it is running on (Linux/Gnome, Windows, etc), it is not
consistent with the expected behaviour of the keyboard in a
text tool, and even worst, it is not consistent with itself
(#, ` and numbers on the keypad are interpreted as
characters, but + and - are interpreted as functions while
they are all shortcuts to functions in the interface).

If you do not like the function keys, what about the following:
Shift +"+" and shift+"-" (or ctrl or alt) to zoom in text
mode. You can keep you hand on the keyboard, and using the
right shift/ctrl, only one hand is needed.

Or another one: when "num lock" is on, use the character and
when off zoom in and out.

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

All emails are screened in the list archives, as you can see
for yourself at http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=93438.
We encourage everyone to join and dicsuss things on the
list. We never had spam complaints.

As for classifying this as RFE, I could not do this
initially because there was no implementable solution
proposed (other than to break what is done on purpose). But
in your last mail I see a suggestion I like: enable +/- to
type these chars when NumLock is on. This makes sense
because you'll need NumLock on for typing digits anyway. So
I'm moving this to RFEs with a new title.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

Thanks!

for point number 2 (special symbols), It seems indeed to be
a known GTK limitation:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148386

They mention in this bug that GTK supports unicode
chaaracters by ctrl+shift+unicode (ex: ctrl+shift+B0 for the
degree sign in Gimp). However, ctrl-U is probably a good
solution since the GTK way has some longstanding bugs:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82011

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

And I just implemented this in CVS. Please test.

[Oliv-users (oliv-users)]

I have downloaded recent versions of the windows builds, and
none of them do have the expected behaviour. Num Lock has no
influence. I tried the official 0.42.1 from sourceforge, and
the August 28th version from
http://www.inkscape.org/win32-snap/.

[Oliv-users (oliv-users)]

September version still have the bug. This bug should not
have been closed.

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

Looks like Windows version needs a different fix.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

setting bug status back to 'New' since there have been no reported changes in the source (no activity since comment #12 from 2005-09-13) and current status on Windows platforms is unknown.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Reproduced on Windows XP, Inkscape 0.47 and rev. 9158.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Reproduced again with Inkscape 0.48.4 and trunk revision 12042, on Windows 7.

[Samuel Dellicour (smd)]

Reproduced with Inkscape 0.48.5 on Windows 7.

[rickmastfan67 (rickmastfan67)]

Still happening in Inkscape 0.91pre4 r13712 (win64) on Windows 7 SP1 x64.

[Uwe Kadritzke (uweka)]

Still (!!!) happening in 1.1 !!! I tried to change the keyboard shortcuts, even tried creating a custom xml file for keyboard settings ... if shortcuts for Numpad+ and Numpad- are overridden with "empty" shortcuts - they doesn't do anything! They neither zoom in/out nor do they print + or - ...

This behaviour is absolutely ridiculous. Do we really need Tantacrul to make a video about all the quirks of the Inkscape interface?

The files I happen to create and edit contain lots of numbers and pluses and minuses and it is highly inconvenient to be forced to use different keys for that input compared to any other application I use or I know. It's ridiculous, as I said. You can't even customize it.

[rickmastfan67 (rickmastfan67)]

Hi - thanks for reporting this bug, I've manually migrated it to Inkscape's new
bug tracker on GitLab, and closed it here.

Please feel free to file new bugs about the issues you're seeing at
http://inkscape.org/report.

Moved to: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/5576
Closed by: https://gitlab.com/rickmastfan67