GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 669597
Sticky keys description rather misleading
Last modified: 2021-06-09 16:07:44 UTC
The description of the sticky keys feature in the control center (Universial Access->Typing) reads "Treat a sequence of modifier keys as a key combination". This is IMHO wrong, as it describes the sticky feature with the locking mechanism DISABLED, while in actuality this very locking feature is enabled. So, if the user accidentially presses e.g. ctrl twice he/she will from then on out press ctrl with every key unless ctrl is unlocked. But the fact that a key can be locked is never told the user, nor is there any indication that a key is locked (there was the accessx status applet in GNOME 2.x, but that's gone, bug report here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647711). If a user accidentially locks a key without knowing what key was locked (e.g. pressing shift together with ctrl), the user is left to figure out how to unlock an unknown key, likely ending up locking others in the process. This is tricky even if one knows about this. Possible solutions in order of work they require: 1) change description to describe actual behaviour 2) add 'enable locking' as an additional setting 3) implement/port the accessx status-applet to GNOME3.
Still in git master: #: ../panels/universal-access/uap.ui.h:48 msgid "Treats a sequence of modifier keys as a key combination"
I won't be available for inqueries on this bug anymore. Feel free to close it.
Possible alternative description: "Lock modifier keys until a non-modifier is pressed"
It looks like latch-to-lock is just broken. Here is a debian bug report that seems to claim it fixed itself: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=692396 but I am still seeing the problem in current f19
(In reply to comment #4) > It looks like latch-to-lock is just broken. Works fine here. (In reply to comment #3) > Possible alternative description: "Lock modifier keys until a non-modifier is > pressed" I don't like the "modifier" term though it's used elsewhere in the dialogue already.
How about "Allow to press keyboard combinations one key at a time" ?
(In reply to comment #6) > How about "Allow to press keyboard combinations one key at a time" ? Sounds friendlier to me. "Allow to" is superfluous here though, so: "Press keyboard combinations one key at a time"
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org. As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled). If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent and supported software version, then please follow https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines and create a new bug report at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/-/issues/ Thank you for your understanding and your help.