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Bug 519713 - mouse keys turns on randomly
mouse keys turns on randomly
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Product: gnome-control-center
Classification: Core
Component: [obsolete] Keyboard Accessibility
2.21.x
Other Linux
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: Control-Center Maintainers
Control-Center Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2008-03-01 11:18 UTC by Sense Hofstede
Modified: 2008-03-04 13:47 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.21/2.22



Description Sense Hofstede 2008-03-01 11:18:22 UTC
At launchpad William Woelke wrote:
"I am using Hardy Heron and several times now I have tried to use my number pad only to discover that they now move the mouse. I don't know if there is a short cut key I am hitting on accident, but it is rather annoying. Then sometimes when I disable mouse keys, the numlock becomes switched so that the system thinks numlock is on when the light is off and vice-versa."
Hardy Heron uses the test version of GNOME.

John added to that:
"

I've been having this problem too on 7.10. If there is a short-cut key to turn this on and off, it should be documented and have the option to disable it.

In "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences", I have the "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" unchecked. The "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox is usually unchecked and inactive. However, whenever mouse keys turns itself on, the "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox becomes checked and inactive even though the "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" checkbox remains unchecked.

Apparently, mouse keys does not respect the state of the "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" checkbox. It will become enabled even though I've in spite of my preferences.

To disable mouse keys I have to check "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" (to make "Enable Mouse Keys" active) , uncheck "Enable Mouse Keys" and then uncheck "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences".

Too many steps to disable a feature that shouldn't be enabled in the first place."
In 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon, 2.20 is used.
Comment 1 Jens Granseuer 2008-03-01 12:59:26 UTC
The keyboard accessibilty capplet from 2.20 is now obsolete. In 2.21, the options have moved to the keyboard capplet and been regrouped.

Now, for 2.21, I cannot reproduce the problems. There is a shortcut to enable mouse keys: Alt + LShift + NumLock. That's a standard X feature, and has nothing to do with Gnome, though. Also, recent versions of X.org had a few problems with CapsLock/NumLock state, so maybe that's related.

Can you provide any additional information? (and please at least state exact version of gnome-control-center and gnome-settings-daemon used when opening bugs)
Comment 2 Denis Washington 2008-03-01 13:23:22 UTC
The problem is that the XkbAccessKeys flag, which we set to enable or disable the accessibility feature shortcuts, is not respected for the mouse keys shortcut in the X.org server. So to fix this, XkbAccessKeys should also toggle the mouse key shorcut. In any case, this is a problem with the X servers and the XKB specification and not one of gnome-control-center, so I this bug should probably be marked NOTGNOME.
Comment 3 Jens Granseuer 2008-03-01 14:30:49 UTC
Yeah, that's if we assume that it has been "randomly" enabled because the reporter actually hit the mouse keys shortcut (which seems unlikely to happen by accident...).
Comment 4 Sense Hofstede 2008-03-01 14:43:24 UTC
He probably hit the shortcut by accident. 
The initial reporter is using the latest version provided by Hardy Heron at the moment, but I don't know which that is. 
Although this isn't a GNOME bug for the main part, I think that the Keyboard Accessible functions should be enabled when a part is enabled, because now the Mouse key selection box is grey and you have to enable the Keyboard Accessible function before that. Normally when a selection box is grey it means that its status doesn't matter.
Comment 5 Jens Granseuer 2008-03-01 15:20:17 UTC
I don't know what you mean. There is no "keyboard accessible" function in 2.21, mouse keys isn't listed under accessibility, and it's never completely greyed out.
Comment 6 Sense Hofstede 2008-03-01 16:45:00 UTC
It is about bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-control-center/+bug/192508 
and reported by an Ubuntu user.
I haven't reproduced the bug by myself, I just told what the reporters said.
Comment 7 Jens Granseuer 2008-03-01 16:57:42 UTC
Well, so unless somebody can bring some more light into this, I'm going to assume that the problem is solely in X. Please reopen if that turns out not to be the case.
Comment 8 John Lang 2008-03-03 22:31:24 UTC
Hi, I'm John from the Launchpad bug report.  Now that I know the keyboard shortcut for turning this feature on and off, I can do some testing.  My keyboard sits out where it gets a lot of random keypresses, making the MouseKeys turning on seem random.

I have the latest version of gnome-control-center, 2.20.1-0ubuntu1, from Ubuntu 7.10 installed.  This package includs gnome-settings-daemon; I assume they are the same version.  I haven't tried the 2.21 version, so I apologize if this is fixed or a non-issue in the latest version.

I'll do my best to describe what my problem is.

1:  Open "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences", select the "Mouse Keys" tab and verify that the "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox is unchecked and inactive.  The "Enable keyboard accessibility features" checkbox is also unchecked.  Close 
"Keyboard Accessibility Preferences".

At this point the user assumes that all keyboard accessibility features are turned off and that in order to turn them on, the "Enable keyboard accessibility features" checkbox will need to be checked.

2:  Alt + LShift + NumLock is pressed once.  MouseKeys are not on, however the "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox is now checked and inactive and the "Enable keyboard accessibility features" checkbox remains unchecked.  Pressing Alt + LShift + NumLock a second time, even after other keys and some time later turns MouseKeys on.  The "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox is checked and inactive and the "Enable keyboard accessibility features" checkbox is still unchecked.

3:  MouseKeys can be turned off by pressing Alt + LShift + NumLock a third time.  Continuing to press Alt + LShift + NumLock toggles the MouseKeys on and off, but leaves the "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences" applet unchanged.

4:  In order to return to the initial state, open "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences", select the "Mouse Keys" tab and check the "Enable keyboard accessibility features" checkbox.  Uncheck the "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox and the uncheck the "Enable keyboard accessibility features" checkbox

It may seem silly to whine about this since it would seem like this keyboard shortcut is unlikely to be pressed by accident, however it is easy to press the shortcut.  Hitting the left and right sides of my keyboard is enough to press the three keys simultaneously, triggering the MouseKeys toggle.  

It boils down to this: There are too many steps to disable a feature that shouldn't be enabled in the first place, if the "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences" applet is to be believed.  Since the applet is obsolete, hopefully this isn't a problem anymore.

To the developers working on Gnome, thanks for your hard work.  You really are doing a great job :)
Comment 9 Jens Granseuer 2008-03-04 13:47:30 UTC
John,

thanks for your detailed analysis. I think your bug is partly obsolete and partly "not our fault" (TM). As Denis mentioned, there is no way for us to disable the mouse keys binding. That's a feature the X server provides whether you want it or not.

As for the UI problems: The "Enable keyboard accessibility" checkbox no longer exists in 2.21. You can enable/disable all features individually without heving to go through such a (possibly incoherent, as you noticed) top-level option.