Comment 12 for bug 550704

Harald Sitter wrote:
> a) You do not need to switch your keyboard layout to write in english
> b) If a user selects the us layout as default keyboard layout at installation _even though_ the installer defaults to a sensible default for the language selected earlier, it is to be assumed that the user either preferres the us layout to begin with or is indeed native us user and just happens to live somewhere else (for whatever reason there is).
>
> Showing an indicator to switch the keyboard layout in cases where layout
> != locale layout is simple pointless. You can't even list another layout
> because for some locales there are multiple different layouts and you
> wouldnt know which one to list. If you care to be able to switch the
> keyboard layout at runtime, then there is appropriate functionallity
> around to make this happen, but there is no reason why the average user
> would need this.

Harald,
you are forgetting the countless users who speak a language which does
not use Latin script, but Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Lao, Khmer,
etc. . Those keyboards have two modes, one for Latin (ususally QWERTY
layout, although Morocco also has AZERTY) and one for the native script.
On some keyboards there is a dedicated key to switch the layout, on
others the user needs to use a key combination. However, there is no
visual indicator on the keyboard that tells the user in which mode it
is. Therefore I think this request is totally valid.
What's more, given the high number of migrants and bilingual users with
non-Latin script languages in Europe and the US, I would even go that
far to install this layout indicator/switcher by default for _every_
user, even if the user chooses to use English as his primary language.

Cheers
Arne