gnome stickykey does not work on openoffice

[pauls]

With stickykeys set to work, when I press Alt and I in openoffice.org calc, I get the wrong focus. It should go to the main manu and drop down the Insert. But, instead it goes to the menu File Properties. This is the wrong focus.

This is a problem in both gnome and xfce4, but works ok on kde-3 or kde-4.

edit 25May09: I recently updated to karmic alpha and experience the same problem on the latest openoffice.org version 3.1.0.

However, I notice that if I uninstall the package openoffice.org-gtk that this problem is fixed. So, the bug appears to be in that package.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[pauls (paulatgm)]

Yes this still is a problem. Not only is it a problem within the gnome desktop, it's also a problem within xfce4 desktop. Both are based on gtk. Is it possible that gtk is the problem.

I filed this bug on 6/18/08, but no developer has commented. Does that mean it will never get fixed?

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for your reply. A bug has to be confirmed by someone else than the reporter. That's usually the minimum to get a developer having a look at it, because the bug could be present on your machine only. However, I am assigning this bug to gtk as you suggested, this might be better than gnome-control-center.

Btw: What exactly do you mean by "stickykeys" ?

[pauls (paulatgm)]

If you try sticky keys you will never want to go back. Sticky keys are part of the X accessibility package. When enabled, it causes the Control, Alt, Win, and Shift (any modifier) keys to stay engaged until the next key is pressed. For example, if you want to hit the key combination Alt-f to open the file menu, without sticky keys, you must press the Alt and f keys at the same time. For most of us, hitting 2 keys at the same time takes 2 hands. With sticky keys, you can hit the Alt, release it and then hit the f key. It will be interpreted as though they were hit at the same time.

This is an extremely helpful feature whenever you're using a cramped keyboard, as most laptops have today. Also, anyone who doesn't want to use a mouse enjoys this feature, because it's easier to use keyboard (combination) shortcuts to get around the desktop.

Try it and I think you'll become a user. Unfortunately, if you use gnome, you'll get a buggy implementation (search and you will find other bugs about gnome and sticky keys). But, kde-3.5.x has it implemented perfectly (even better than M$)!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you try? do you have a reference url for the GNOME bug?

[pauls (paulatgm)]

FWIW, I think these gnome bugs illustrate the problem with accessiblity features in gnome. It appears that decisions were made years ago to avoid fixing these problems and complying with the accessX feature set. And my current bug probably is related to the years' old issue in gnome. At least that's my guess from reading these old bug reports:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95656

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131406

Specifically take note of this comment from 10/30/2003 in 95656:

" XKB allows this, but it's
not clear to me that this behavior is important to users. We _do_
know that the second behavior (latch-to-lock OFF) would cause problems
with window navigation in GNOME, so if we do allow the user to switch
between behaviors #1 and #2, we will have to deal with the difficult
problem of fixing the resulting metacity 'regression'."

It seems like gnome has always had the idea that it's too difficult to fix and will cause regressions.

[pauls (paulatgm)]

Now that this problem can be fixed by removing openoffice.org-gtk, it ought to be easier to troubleshoot. Any ideas how to proceed?