"Show Keyboard Status" indicator in KDE4

[dotancohen]

Binary package hint: kde

A very serious accessibility issue has been addressed in KDE Trunk:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165402

The issue has been resolved in KDE SVN commit 876002. Please backport this to 8.04 and 8.10 so that users with manual disabilities can upgrade to KDE 4.x. Thank you.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Version: (using KDE 4.0.83)

KDE 3 has a "show keyboard status" (name translated, but it should be similar) panel applet, that indicates the activation states for the keyboard meta keys. This is helpful especially for users of Sticky Keys, which I need due to disability. Please port this applet to KDE 4 as well. Thanks.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Changing component to plasma (I hope that's right) and marking Priority to Hi as this is an accessibility issue as I am having a hard time using KDE 4 without this applet. Thanks.

[FiNeX (finex)]

I've see a "keyboard leds" applet in playground but it is not yet completed.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

I am googling but cannot find it. Can you provide a link, so that I can see if this meets the needs of the Sticky Keys people?

I notice that the priority has been moved down to NOR again. For those with 10 operable fingers who do not rely on Sticky Keys this applet may seem unimportant. For me, it is the difference between typing and not typing. Please reconsider returning the priority to HI as I (and others like me) will be unable to use KDE 4 until this is implemented. Thanks.

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

asnwer to question from comment #3 was provided at http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-accessibility&m=121901525332454&w=2

So, it works and we can close the bugreport :)

@Dotan
If you don't agree please reopen or create a new bugreport with details what is missing so we can implement it. Thanks for the feedback.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Thank you Sebastian, but the Keyboard LEDs applet does not suit the needs of Sticky Keys users. The Keyboard LEDs applet only shows the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, and Num lock status. Sticky Keys users need these functions (provided by the Show Keyboard Status applet in KDE 3.x):
* Shift key status
* Ctrl key status
* Tux key status
* Alt key status
These are the modifier keys that Sticky Keys makes sticky.

I am reopening this bug instead of filing a new bug against the Keyboard LEDs applet because the scope of the Show Keyboard Status applet is not the same scope as that of the Keyboard LEDs applet. They serve two separate purposes.

Thanks.

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

Thanks Dotan,

and finally I also found the KDE 3.5 applet we are talking about :)
It is at http://websvn.kde.org/branches/KDE/3.5/kdeaccessibility/kbstateapplet and was not ported yet it seems.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

I did not know that it had to be found! I would have linked two months ago.

Thanks!

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

I hate to be a pest, but has there been work on this? Who can I corrupt with a beer (or six) to have this implemented? I would like to upgrade to KDE 4.1 but I simply cannot do so until this applet is ported. Thanks in advance!

[Sebastian Kügler (sebasje)]

FWIW, the Plasma keyboard LED applet has been moved to kdereview and will be part of 4.2.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

As stated in Comment #5, the Keyboard LED applet is not worth anything to those affected by this bug. It does not show modifier key status. Sticky Keys users need these functions (provided by the Show Keyboard Status applet in KDE 3.x):
* Shift key status
* Ctrl key status
* Tux key status
* Alt key status
These are the modifier keys that Sticky Keys makes sticky.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

I am changing the priority to HI as Suse is removing support for KDE 3 and KDE 4 is unusable to people with specific disabilities without this applet.

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

FYI; I agree absolute re priority and started already to port kdstateapplet into a Plasma applet. Should land within next days depending on remaining issues mixed with free time ;)

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Thanks, Sebastian! You guys are the greatest, absolute greatest team of software devs, ever!

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

Meta-kde is not a bug dumping place.

Anywho, the plasmoid is _not_ in official KDE yet!

[13:33:34] <Arby> apachelogger: with your core dev hat on when do you think that will land in kubuntu?
[13:33:42] <Arby> presumably 4.2 at the earliest
[13:33:54] <apachelogger> well
[13:34:00] <apachelogger> that depends partly on KDE
[13:34:22] <apachelogger> if they are going to include the plasmoid into 4.2, then KDE 4.2 is the latest :P
[13:34:45] <apachelogger> earliest would be that we create a svn snapshot of the plasmoid and deploy it via KDE 4 ppa

That means: if the plasmoid is backportable we might ship it via our KDE 4 PPA right away, if it is not we have no other choice than wait for 4.2.0 and then deploy it through mentioned PPA.
Adding this kind of functionality this close to relase is no option, especially since KDE didn't do quality control yet (the reason it is in the playground part of KDE).

By the way, once you filed a bug report you can link an associated KDE bug yourself: below the task panel (at the top of bug reports) ther is a link that says "Also affects project" using that you can add the associated report.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

> Meta-kde is not a bug dumping place.

I never thought that it was, but in the upstream bug, at BKO, the component is KDE and not something more specific.

> That means: if the plasmoid is backportable we might ship it via our KDE 4 PPA
> right away, if it is not we have no other choice than wait for 4.2.0 and then deploy
> it through mentioned PPA.
> Adding this kind of functionality this close to relase is no option, especially since
> KDE didn't do quality control yet (the reason it is in the playground part of KDE).

Thanks, Harold, I had logged off IRC by that time (apparently right before). I know that this cannot be added to the release of 8.10, but a PPA would be great. That's why I mentioned backporting as well.

One thing: I would like to see this marked not as a wish, but as an accessibility issue. Marking it as a wish makes it seem unimportant, but for people with manual disabilities this is a showstopper.

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

[13:36:37] <apachelogger> IMHO we should be ashamed and kick ourselfs in the arse for the status of accessibility in 8.10

8.10 in general is no sensible upgrade target for people who depend on the accessibility stuff. + From the bug triage point of view this is missing functionality, even if it is a regression from previous Kubuntu releases, it still is just a request for functionality. By definition a wish.

You can be sure that we take most wishlist items quite serious, but at the same time a kmag crash that takes down X is still more important.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

I cannot find this Panel Applet in recent Trunk builds. Am I missing something? I would like to start testing and possibly file bugs on the applet. Thanks.

[Wassi (wassipaul)]

The latest commit digest mentioned it: http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-02/moreinfo/875994/

[Kevin-kofler (kevin-kofler)]

It's still in kdereview.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

I have been in contact with the developer of this plasmoid. He just missed inclusion in official KDE 4.2 by a few days. He suggests that I petition here to have Ubuntu include this plasmoid independent of KDE:
http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/kdereview/plasma/applets/kbstateapplet/

So, here I request that the plasmoid be included in Kubuntu 9.04. There are many improvements to software critical to my work in Kubuntu 9.04, and as Kubuntu 8.04 is not LTS I am approaching the supported life of the version. Thanks.

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

I can confirm that the kbstate-plasmoid is ready for use and can be used in KDE 4.1 and 4.2. Suse did backport it to there 4.1.x branch ( http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3746 ).

Current plan seems to be to;
* we will move the kbstate-plasmoid to kdebase/workspace in 4.3 rather then to kdeplasma-addons cause it needs to be part of the core package.
* improve artwork (use SVG and Plasma-Theme)

But the points above are *not* showstoppers imho. So, would be great if Kubuntu would pick it even before 4.3. Thx :)

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

So it would be alright if we just took a svn snapshot of the applet in its current state in kdereview and packaged that? (Just wanna make sure you don't have plans to move it to some place like extragear to do some sort of a release there first.)

The applet itself should be pretty trivial to package.

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

yes, absolute ok to take a snapshot and no, we don't move it to extragear cause kdeplasma-addons is somewhat the extragear for plasma related stuff. Also the kbstate-applet is pretty stable and was well tested last ~4 years in KDE3 and is mainly a well tested port to KDE4.
So, from my pov (as the one who did the port and the svn mv to kdereview) I (and very likely kubuntu users too) would rather like to go with that "ugly" applet and don't wait till someone (me? :-) did fixed the 1-2 things noted above before it can be moved from review to kdebase in 4.3 (what would delay the usage by 6 more month).

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Great! Thanks for your work on this applet.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Ok, one issue I can foresee right now is that to distribute the app as a standalone package it will need to include a copy of the GPL. (COPYING file) If you could commit that to svn I could add it to the tarball I made manually. Pending that issue being resolved, the packaging is ready for review via normal Ubuntu new-package-sponsorship methods for inclusion in Jaunty.

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

Suse did took the version that is in kdereview; http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3746
Kubuntu may do the same; https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdeaccessibility/+bug/289440

According to the discusion at http://lists.kde.org/?t=123116233700007&r=1&w=2 we need to;
* we will move the kbstate-plasmoid to kdebase/workspace in 4.3 rather then to kdeplasma-addons cause it needs to be part of the core package.
* improve artwork (use SVG and Plasma-Theme)

[Sebastian Sauer (mail-dipe)]

COPYING committed with r906372 :)

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Woot! :D
Here's the revu link where the progress of the review process can be observed: http://revu.ubuntuwire.com/details.py?package=plasmoid-kbstate

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Moving the package of kdeaccessibilty since it's a separate package and marking fix committed as I've uploaded it.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

Thank you Sebastian, Jonathon, and every one else who made the effort to get this in. These 'little accessibility' issues are very important to the small set of users who are sensitive to these issues.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

The package was released to Jaunty on the 6th, but I guess it didn't close the bug... Closing now.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Is this ready for debase/workspace?

If you need someone to work on the artwork I will give it a shot.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

It is unclear to me if this essential plasmoid will be included in KDE 4.3. Could someone please clarify? Thanks.

[Dennis Schridde (devurandom)]

Revision 963596 - Directory Listing
 Modified Mon May 4 22:59:10 2009 UTC (5 days, 21 hours ago) by aseigo
move back to playground; the UI is horrific, the code is ancient and apparently it has no developer to be its constant companion

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

> move back to playground; the UI is horrific, the code
> is ancient and apparently it has no developer to be its
> constant companion

What? This is an important accessibility issue. Us silly disabled users do not care if the UI is horrific or if the code is ancient. We care that we can at least use the computer!

[Jpmullen (jpmullen)]

This plasmoid became available in kde4.2 as part of the "kde4-plasma-addons" package under Suse 11.1 but then after I upgraded to KDE 4.3 it disappeared. It seems that KDE4.3 calls the packages "plasma-addons" and does not included this utility. I am not sure if this is distribution specific or a problem with KDE 4 in general. Is there a way to manually download and install this utility?

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

@John: Suse added the plasmoid, KDE 4.2 did not ship with it. I don't know why Suse removed it for 4.3. You might want to ask on the Suse list and file an issue on the Suse bugtracker.

Sebastian, is there an ETA for this issue? This plasmoid is very necessary for users with manual disabilities.

[Okichatan (okichatan)]

Any updates on this feature?

[Lafriks-d (lafriks-d)]

And this is really needed for netbook users that does not have such indicator on keyboard... like Asus Eee PC. It's hard to work without it.

[Dennis Schridde (devurandom)]

(In reply to comment #25)
> And this is really needed for netbook users that does not have such indicator
> on keyboard... like Asus Eee PC. It's hard to work without it.
It is also a serious issue for certain desktop keyboards, like the Logitech MX 3200, which does not have leds by itself, but (on Windows) relies on the capability of the OS to display the status.

[Gilboa Davara (gilboad)]

(In reply to comment #26)
> It is also a serious issue for certain desktop keyboards, like the Logitech MX
> 3200, which does not have leds by itself, but (on Windows) relies on the
> capability of the OS to display the status.

/+1. (MX3200 user)

- Gilboa

[Martin-blumenstingl (martin-blumenstingl)]

Hi,

I've written a plasmoid some time ago which might be interesting for you.
Check out this forum post: http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=157&t=86964#p153417

What's missing is probably an "Icon Layout".
Also the settings dialog probably has to be redone (I'm not good at UI stuff - I just wanted to get the UI working somehow...).

Feel free to ping me if you have questions/ideas how my plasmoid could be improved.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Even in it's early state, Martin's plasmoid is a suitable replacement for the KDE 3 "show keyboard status" applet. As soon as it is included in KDE, this issue can be closed.

[Gilboa Davara (gilboad)]

Trying to install the widget under F13/x86_64 4.5rc2 fails with no apparent error.
Any idea what's wrong?

[Martin-blumenstingl (martin-blumenstingl)]

(In reply to comment #30)
> Trying to install the widget under F13/x86_64 4.5rc2 fails with no apparent
> error.

Dotan got the same problem.
I'm not sure if it's my code's fault or if something else is broken.
Could you try starting my plasmoid with plasmoidviewer (just unzip the plasmoid file somewhere and run "plasmoidviewer ." from there)

PS: I think any discussion regarding my plasmoid should be done somewhere else :)
Maybe we should move it to kde-accessibility as there's already a thread for it:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-accessibility&m=127896530222730&w=2

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Martin, has there been any progress with your plasmoid? Thanks!

[Martin-blumenstingl (martin-blumenstingl)]

Unfortunately there has been no progress.
I'm doing my final exams right now so I don't have that much free time.

I will have a look at the plasmoid though, as it causes high CPU load on my box.
And once I started again I can move on to the other open tasks... ;)

[bhushan (bhush94)]

Hello, Can you provide me screen shot of older widget, functionality and more information? I am ready to develop it.

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Thank you Bhushan! These two screenshots from an earlier bug show the widget in the lower right corner:
http://bugsfiles.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=32085
http://bugsfiles.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=32086

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

Created attachment 81170
Screenshot

Attached is a screenshot of the keystate widget (grey) and the keyboard layout widget (flag) as I currently have them on a top panel.

Thanks!

[Nikolaos Kakouros (tterranigma)]

Isn't this issue obsolete?

[Kde-2011-08 (kde-2011-08)]

(In reply to Nikolaos Kakouros from comment #37)
> Isn't this issue obsolete?

Updated title to KDE 5. Thanks, Nikolaos.

[Ben Creasy (jcrben)]

From https://marc.info/?l=kde-accessibility&m=121901525332454&w=2 linked above, it looks like the code is at https://websvn.kde.org/trunk/playground/base/plasma/applets/keyboardLeds/ - in case that helps anyone get started.

[Martin-blumenstingl (martin-blumenstingl)]

I have ported my "KeyState Plasmoid" to KF5 back in 2016
you can get it here:
https://github.com/xdarklight/keystate-plasmoid
https://www.linux-apps.com/p/998903/

[Danne-2 (danne-2)]

Created attachment 154880
Martins port of his keystate-plasmoid

(In reply to Martin Blumenstingl from comment #40)
> I have ported my "KeyState Plasmoid" to KF5 back in 2016
> you can get it here:
> https://github.com/xdarklight/keystate-plasmoid
> https://www.linux-apps.com/p/998903/

Tried installing it on 5.26.4 and it works! See attachment.

I would love to see this worked on and included in the official kde packages, why not in the official Keyboard-indicator?
* new icons
* option to see all keys at once with color changes depending on state.
* possibility to activate sticky-keys from applet
* press the respective icon to activate it

Now that sticky-keys hopefully makes it to wayland, see https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/3365 it would be great for me and my "one-armed" friends