Comment 5 for bug 1228422

I have done some testing using different applications and different input mode settings on Ubuntu Saucy, and i notice that there are some differences concerning keyboard shortcuts, depending on the application used. Long story short, while on LibreOffice and Chromium Browser we can see a stable behavior regardless of the input mode used, Gedit seems to be reacting differently to some actions.
I am attaching a screenshot of an analysis table for these tests, in hope that this will be helpful to the dev team. If more testing is needed, i 'll be glad to help out.

On the matter that if the layout shortcut changes then it cannot be reverted back to default, i saw that when trying to set the layout shortcut back to Super+Space in the Text Entry Settings window, then the input is read as Mod4+Super+Hyper+Space, so one cannot revert to default any more. But when trying the exact same thing through System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Typing, then the Super+Space shortcut is read correctly and the user can revert to default. Maybe there are some differences between the two setting modes?

So that leaves the matter of the available layout changing shortcut. Please, let me explain briefly why this is so important.
In many non-English documents, we can find a lot of words written in English, such as technological terms, names, brands, product model names, and even measurement units. This is not a problem for a non-English speaking but user as long as the user's language uses the latin alphabet. That is because at this case, English characters are a subset of the user's native layout. For example, a French user can type any English word using the French layout.
This is not the case for Greek or Cyrillic alphabet language users, as no Latin characters are part of the Greek or Cyrillic layout. This means that in a single page of document, one may need to change layouts up to 100 times (50 from native to Latin and 50 back to native). That gets even worst when shortcuts like cut/copy/paste do not work in native layout, so additional layout changes must be made.
So, it is clear that something that is used so often, should be as convenient as possible. That means thta the layout changing shortcut should:
- Be enabled by just one hand (ideally the left one, as the right hand controls the <Enter>, <Backspace>, etc).
- Contain as less keys as possible (preferably just one, two at the most), that are located close to each other.
This sets a limit to the lower left side of the keyboard. The Alt+Shift is not considered an ideal solution, but due to its long time usage from a widows user, is achieved relatively easy. Even better alternative solutions, are the Ctrl+Shift shortcuts (offered also as an alternative on Windows), and plain Caps Lock key (available also in Windows machines via AutoHotKey application). I am referring to windows because a lot of users are dual booting, or even use windows machines in work environments, so there should be some compatibility of something used so much.

My sincere apologies for the length of my comment and for pointing out things that may be obvious, my intention was just to make sure that a point haw been made about why this is an important bug, as it so far renders the 13.10 as unsuitable for everyday use.