GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 659243
Show num-lock/caps lock/etc. status
Last modified: 2021-07-05 14:28:39 UTC
Some devices (like the MSI Wind, apparently) have a way to switch num-lock status, but no visual feedback on the keyboard as to which locks are enabled. This should be enabled by default on devices which lack the hardware to show it themselves (if at all). This patch to gnome-settings-daemon removed the support for the feature from the fallback mode. commit 87d635355f733cafb105acdc862258dfdd5900e5 Author: William Jon McCann <jmccann@redhat.com> Date: Fri Jan 28 16:29:57 2011 -0500 keyboard: remove status icons for keyboard leds There is no sense maintaining code that uses obsolete status icons, won't be shown in GNOME 3, doesn't match designs, doesn't have an equivalent in GNOME Shell, is off by default, and has no UI to turn it on.
See also https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627098 and dupes about the num-lock status requirement (though the code there is unusable).
on my desktop computer, I have a wireless keyboard that has no LEDs on it (to save battery I guess)
FWIW the shell support has been removed in http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/commit/?id=0244c6d5b85cb30f6466fa08400a19f68693c823 shortly after it got implemented.
> This should be enabled by default on devices which lack the hardware to show it > themselves (if at all). Do we even have this information available ?
(In reply to comment #4) > > This should be enabled by default on devices which lack the hardware to show it > > themselves (if at all). > > Do we even have this information available ? Would mean adding the information to udev, so definitely possible.
(In reply to comment #5) > (In reply to comment #4) > > > This should be enabled by default on devices which lack the hardware to show it > > > themselves (if at all). > > > > Do we even have this information available ? > > Would mean adding the information to udev, so definitely possible. But where would udev get it ? Does the hw report this ? Another related bit of keyboard information I could use is whether it has a separate or overlayed keypad.
(In reply to comment #6) > (In reply to comment #5) > > (In reply to comment #4) > > > > This should be enabled by default on devices which lack the hardware to show it > > > > themselves (if at all). > > > > > > Do we even have this information available ? > > > > Would mean adding the information to udev, so definitely possible. > > But where would udev get it ? Does the hw report this ? > > Another related bit of keyboard information I could use is whether it has a > separate or overlayed keypad. I guess he meant "hand maintained data".
(In reply to comment #7) > I guess he meant "hand maintained data". Yep.
I don't really think it makes sense to show per device mode status like this in the OS at the global level. It would be really confusing when you have multiple devices and very distracting in general. I think the best place to indicate this is the text input context itself. If the text is visible then you can see what the state is. If the text is invisible then we already should be showing a status icon in the entry field.
(In reply to comment #9) > I don't really think it makes sense to show per device mode status like this in > the OS at the global level. It would be really confusing when you have multiple > devices and very distracting in general. It's not per-device, it's global (even if there might be bugs in X which means the LEDs aren't getting updated). > I think the best place to indicate this is the text input context itself. If > the text is visible then you can see what the state is. If the text is > invisible then we already should be showing a status icon in the entry field. This is mainly a problem for the num-lock, where you would navigate away from the text field if you typed using the keypad keys with num-lock off, or, on some laptops, you'd type numbers instead of letters for example.
https://github.com/kazysmaster/gnome-shell-extension-lockkeys seems to be a good workaround until this gets in. However, it doesn't work on login and unlock screens, where it would be most useful. I opened an issue for that at https://github.com/kazysmaster/gnome-shell-extension-lockkeys/issues/52.
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