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Bug 640774 - For some reason I can't add more than 4 layouts
For some reason I can't add more than 4 layouts
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-control-center
Classification: Core
Component: Region & Language
git master
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Control-Center Maintainers
Control-Center Maintainers
: 646269 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2011-01-27 22:28 UTC by William Jon McCann
Modified: 2013-05-06 07:37 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Description William Jon McCann 2011-01-27 22:28:27 UTC 
For some reason I can't add more than 4 layouts.  If this is some limitation of the implementation we should indicate this to the user somehow.
Comment 1 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2011-01-27 22:37:09 UTC 
I thought by now everybody knows that XKB does not allow more than 4 groups. If you want to indicate that to the user - ok, let's do it. How? All I can do is disable the "add" button.
Comment 2 Bastien Nocera 2011-01-31 15:45:15 UTC 
There are multiple ways to do this, but we'll run into trouble if we merge input sources selection with keyboard layouts selection.

In the meanwhile, we could:
- disable the "+" button
- show an error when trying to add a 5th layout

Is removing the limit from XKB something that can be done? It would be much easier than trying to work-around the problem...
Comment 3 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2011-02-03 22:32:45 UTC 
No, the limit is hardcoded on the protocol level. 2 bits. X11 protocol is a holy cow, as you know.

Currently, the button + is disabled when N(layouts)=4.
Comment 4 Bastien Nocera 2011-02-03 22:35:23 UTC 
We know that, but we'll need to have an error message instead (explaining that it's technically not possible). I didn't realise that the configuration panel was already disabling the '+' button.
Comment 5 Bastien Nocera 2011-02-03 22:52:59 UTC 
Jon, can you think of a good error message for this problem?
Comment 6 William Jon McCann 2011-02-18 18:15:53 UTC 
"Four layouts should be enough for anyone." ;)

As a rule of thumb if you need to present such text something is wrong either in the code or in the presentation.

Ideally we could communicate this visually.  One way to do this might be to have a limited number of "slots" where layouts are added to them explicitly.


[ English ]
[ Russian ]
[ Add layout ]
[ Add layout ]

Or we could communicate this with text using something like:

"2 of 4 layouts"

or even a segmented progress bar [XX__]

Which I think are all slightly better than the magic text that appears when you've added your forth:
"A maximum of four layouts are supported."
Comment 7 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2011-02-18 20:32:27 UTC 
> if you need to present such text something is wrong either
in the code or in the presentation.
Even worse - something is wrong in the architecture:)

> segmented progress bar [XX__]
Actually, the progress bar looks like an interesting (and visually clear) representation. Is it HIG-compliant?
Comment 8 Bastien Nocera 2011-03-30 22:29:04 UTC 
*** Bug 646269 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Rui Matos 2012-09-26 12:16:15 UTC 
This is fixed in 3.6
Comment 10 Pedro Hernández 2013-05-01 08:53:39 UTC 
At least in Unity the bug is not fixed and the problem remains
Comment 11 Bastien Nocera 2013-05-06 07:37:33 UTC 
(In reply to comment #10)
> At least in Unity the bug is not fixed and the problem remains

Unity doesn't use the input sources from GNOME.