Unable to set the physical keyboard LED to show an alternative layout

[Norbert]

******************
 HOW TO REPRODUCE
******************

- Go to "system configuration / keyboard", or "system configuration / text input".

********************
 EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR
********************

- To be able to set the physical keyboard LED to show an alternative layout: "Caps Lock", "Num Lock" or "Scroll Lock".

****************
 REAL BEHAVIOUR
****************

- Not to be able to configure the LED behaviour.
- The problem with this is many people tend to look at the keyboard while typing, and it's somehow exhausting for them having to look at the keyboard indicator in the screen every time they want to check in which keyboard layout they at in that moment.

*************
 WORK-AROUND
*************

- Unknown.

******************
 RELEVANT DETAILS
******************

- Affects Ubuntu 13.10.
- Doesn't affect Ubuntu versions prior to 13.10 (see screen-shot).
- For other layout switching problems introduced in Ubuntu 13.10, you can see bug #1218322.

*******************
 TECHNICAL DETAILS
*******************

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu45
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-13.20-generic 3.11.6
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-13-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Oct 27 17:11:41 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-20 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release i386 (20131016.1)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
 activity-log-manager 0.9.7-0ubuntu4
 deja-dup 27.3.1-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-datetime 13.10.0+13.10.20131016.2-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-signon 0.1.7~+13.10.20130724.1-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-unity 1.3+13.10.20131004-0ubuntu1

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Since this bug impacts accessibility of a core application, it has a priority of "High".

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Is this bug present when using the GNOME default desktop environment?

You can test this by:

1. Installing the "gnome" package.
2. In the log-in screen, choosing the GNOME desktop environment.
3. Then having a look at the Control Panel.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Hello, Alberto!
I confirm this in GNOME Session Flashback of Ubuntu 13.10.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

And in the non fall-back, what happens?

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

I confirm this in non fall-back too.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Trying to configure input method from the indicator, I'm able to see the control panel where to change from input layouts; so what really is going on is the control panel icon to be hidden.

After been installed, it's the "indicator-keyboard" package the one which should tell the control panel to show that icon.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Doesn't the "text input" icon in the Control Center provide the functionality asked in this report?

I think I'm not understanding very well what's this bug is about. If you think this is the case, please rewrite the report description so it fits the attached template.

And lets see.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Alberto, please see screenshot (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/+bug/1245188/+attachment/3892954/+files/Keyboard%20Layout%20Options%20-%20LEDs.png) from Ubuntu 12.04.3. It was under gnome-control-center-keyboard (see bug 1245064).
What version(s) of Ubuntu do you have installed, Alberto?

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Norbert, please rewrite the report description so it fits the attached template.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Excuse me. What really happens is that I'm unsure what is the behaviour you find in the keyboard LED when you thick these options in the Keyboard Layout Options panel in Ubuntu 12.04. Do they allow you:

- to enable these keys from the indicator?
- to show when these keys are pressed?

so I can figure out:

- which is the priority of this bug.
- if this bug needs to be reported upstream, to GNOME.

[Andrew.Y (andrew.y)]

Alberto, the original functionality of this settings in 12.04 is:

 - user sets up two keyboard layouts, eg. "English (US)" and some local layout
 - user choose which LED (or even LEDs) to use (see attached to bug screenshot)
 - from now on while the first layout is selected ("English (US)" from example), the LED if off; while the second layout is selected (some local from example) - the LED is ON

The typical usage (for me) is to set Caps Lock as layout switch key (original Caps Lock function in this case will be automatically remapped to Shift+Caps Lock) and set Caps Lock LED as layout Indicator (with the setting from screenshot). (Also the same approach for Scroll Lock, but this key/LED is much less common for notebooks.)

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

And what's the advantage of this functionality, having a keyboard indicator that shows itself in which layout you're?

[Andrew.Y (andrew.y)]

Alberto, exactly.

(With this feature it is possible to type text in definitely correct layout without looking to screen, for example.)

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

+1 for Andrew.Y.
Keyboard layout indicator (in tray) is very far from keyboard (it is in the top right corner of the screen).
While keyboard LED (for example Scroll Lock) is more visible when you typing.

So this functionality is very useful, but it is missed in Saucy.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

The bug is well described now.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Since this bug affect a non-essential aspect and limited scope of the application, it has a priority of "low".

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

This bug needs now to be notified to the upstream developers of GNOME (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToTriage#Forwarding_upstream).

Once this has been done, it will be ready to be worked on by a developer.

[Nikita Tsukanov (keks9n)]

Oh, great. That feature was here for ages, not it's removed and priority is set to "low".

[Nikita Tsukanov (keks9n)]

s/not/now/

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

So how much importance will you set to this bug, Nikita? (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Importance)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@Nikita: doesn't pay that much attention to bug settings, that bug is an annoyance and is going to be worked on, it's just not a data lost type of bug. The "low" doesn't mean it's not going to be resolved

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Not sure what "LED" is and how it works, but as suggested before, that issue should be reported upstream

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

It's clearer now what LED is, Sebastien?

It also happened to me: I didn't know about what LED they were speaking about, but just means lights in the physical keyboard. This configuration makes these LEDs to light when changing from one layout to another.

[Sebastian J. Bronner (waschtl)]

@Sebastien:

You know, the little lights situated just above the number pad that light up when you press Num-Lock, Caps-Lock, or Scroll-Lock. They can be set to indicate when the keyboard is in a non-default layout (well used to be able to, anyway).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Where is the configuration option in gnome-control-center to enable that?

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

@Sebastien
It was in gnome-control-center keyboard (select tab "Typing", click on link "Layout Settings" in left bottom corner of window, press the "Options" button in the bottom right corner of window, window "Keyboard Layout Options" is opened). See screenshot (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/+bug/1245188/+attachment/3892954/+files/Keyboard%20Layout%20Options%20-%20LEDs.png).

I reported upstream.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Since this bug is:

- Valid.
- Well described.
- Reported in the upstream bug tracker (GNOME).
- Ready to be worked on by a developer.

it's also triaged.

[Andrew.Y (andrew.y)]

Hmm... Seems, not much from upstream, we are on our own. Stated "already resolved" ( https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=711429#c1 ).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It's likely that the bug is still existing in upstream 3.10, they just reacted to the 3.6 version in the description ... if somebody could test with the current version (using the GNOME3 ppa or jhbuild or a liveCD from another distribution) that would be useful to confirm and reopen the bug

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exists in latest GNOME 3.10 (from ppa). So I reopened bug.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

GNOME developers have decided not to fix this bug. Sorry ☹

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

I see, Alberto.
They suggest to use gnome-tweak-tool.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

@Sebastien,
please do not make new unity-control-center less functional than last usable gnome-control-center (I mean full-functional version 3.4.2 in Ubuntu 12.04).

And as I wrote before in bug 1270574 - please realize the following - "keyboard layout settings must be consistent between gnome-control-center keyboard, indicator-keyboard and gnome-tweak-tool and /etc/default/keyboard".
As I remember pre-installatio of gnome-tweak-tool by default (see bug 1270572) is not possible because of dependence on gnome-shell. For now I unable to configure almost all settings on GNOME FlashBack session in Ubuntu 14.04 with unity-control-center (see for example bug 1282637).

I still hope that unity-control-center will provide users with universal interface for system configuration (and session-independent).
I'm ready to help you and other developers to test the newest features of the software.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@Norbert: that option is not likely to be exposed in unity-control-center, for the same reason it's not listed in gnome-control-center (those non standard xorg specific keyboard options are not needed by the vast majority of users), maybe unity-tweak-tool could list those though