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Bug 466711 - gnome-keyboard-properties "default layout" feature is not documented
gnome-keyboard-properties "default layout" feature is not documented
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-user-docs
Classification: Core
Component: gnome-help
2.32.x
Other All
: Normal minor
: Future
Assigned To: Maintainers of Gnome user documentation
Maintainers of Gnome user documentation
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2007-08-14 18:32 UTC by Ray Strode [halfline]
Modified: 2017-04-12 20:17 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Ray Strode [halfline] 2007-08-14 18:32:14 UTC
(from Stepan Kasal, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=251024)

In gnome-keyboard-properties, tab Layouts, there are two different mechanisms to
set the default layout, depending on the "Separate group for each window" option:
- if it is on, the default can be selected by the radio buttons in the default
column
- if it is off, the default is simply the first one.

So we have two styles for the same thing, which can be confusing.

Most importantly, this is not mentioned in the help!
(Thus I had to spend some time experimenting before I found out how it works.)

Some facts which contribute to the confusion:
- there are checkboxes which in fact work as radio buttons
- when inactive, these checkboxes are shaded, but the shaded frame is hard to notice
- when a layout is selected, the checkbox is not shaded, even though it cannot
be changed
Comment 1 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2007-08-14 20:26:45 UTC
You got it actually wrong. If none of the layouts is the default one, there is no default layout. Let me explain.

First of all, default layout only works when you have 'separate layout per each window' checked (otherwise these radios are disabled).

Suppose, you have layouts 'us' and 'ru'.
First scenario: you have default 'us'. It means when you create new window (any window), it has layout 'us', regardless of what was your layout a millisecond ago. Same thing if you have default layout 'ru' - it would be the layout for any new window. Sure you can switch layouts as usual.

If there is NO default layout, new window gets whatever was the layout millisecond ago. It just uses the current layout - no layout switching is performed. 

May be, it is incorrectly explained in the docs - but that how it is supposed to work.
Comment 2 Stepan Kasal 2007-08-15 16:18:18 UTC
Hi Sergey,
thank you for an explanation of the distinction of the "default set" and "no default set" in the "separate layout per each window" case.

But I'd like to concentrate on the case when "separate layout per each window" is not checked.  For people using that mode (like me), it is natural to use the term "default layout" for the layout which is set when session starts.
That's why I looked for a way to set one of my layouts as "the default".
I can see now that the gnome terminus for this is "the first layout" but I hope you can see it is quite natural to confuse that with "the default" layout.

> May be, it is incorrectly explained in the docs - but that how it is supposed
> to work.

Prehaps the column "Default" might be renamed to "Window default" to prevent the confusion described above.

Other that that, you convinced me that there is no simpler way to express this high lever of configurability.

But in any case, this is really complicated and needs to be described in the help.
That's why I'm re-opening this bug, against the component "docs".
Comment 3 Stefan Friesel 2008-04-19 12:20:17 UTC
I can confirm this bug and would not necessarily limit it to doc (it should Just Work).

Use case:
A wants to show B his newest hack on A's computer, but adds his preferred hacking-layout. He doesn't want to remove A's layout from the list, though. Just selecting his layout doesn't work, so he eventually deltes A's layout. (actually happened yesterday)

IMHO the activated (highlighted whatever) layout should be the one that is being activated, not the first. The check box label could be changed to something like "new windows use default layout", which would probably make it more clear, that it has to be checked for defaults to have effect. Just my 2€.
Comment 4 Maciej Pilichowski 2011-03-23 21:00:35 UTC
>- if it is off, the default is simply the first one.

I have it off, and no matter what the order is, the default layout is always USA.
Comment 5 Shaun McCance 2012-02-28 00:48:30 UTC
Moving to gnome-user-docs. I know the design team has plans for the keyboard stuff, but as it stands right now, we could still do a better job documenting it.
Comment 6 André Klapper 2014-02-27 01:05:20 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> First of all, default layout only works when you have 'separate layout per each
> window' checked (otherwise these radios are disabled).

Is that now the "Allow different sources for each window" setting under "GNOME Control Center > Region & Language > Input Sources > Options"?
Comment 7 Paul Cutler 2017-04-12 12:34:38 UTC
Per Andre's comment, it looks like this is fixed in "GNOME Control Center > Region & Language > Input Sources > Options".  Is that correct?  If so, this is documented in keyboard-layouts.page
Comment 8 Alexandre Franke 2017-04-12 20:17:06 UTC
Yep.