https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/188308
Somebody please back me up so we can get this fixed before Hardy is out. I've trained myself not to use the backspace key at all, but this really sucks. I don't want to have to mess with a fresh ubuntu install just to get my keyboard layout working right. We have less than a month.
I'll back you up once I get registered; this is really quite annoying.
Yeah, sorry-- as an alpha and beta tester I report bugs a lot, so I've had a launchpad account for quite some time. Thanks for confirming the bug.
..anyone else?
This is a bug with the way GNOME handles keyboard layouts (not a problem with X.Org or KDE).
I don't know that I find gnome's layout handling flawed in principle, in fact I think I do not.
It's the implementation. The behavior of the backspace key can already be customized to be ctrl or what have you.. backspace just needs to be added to those options, and left out of the layout entirely.
The quick and nasty fix I'm using right now is setting the CapsLock to a Control key under the Layout Options and there is little use of Ctrl+Backspace, so it works mostly and so far the annoyances aren't too severe. Hopefully this will get fixed.
Has anyone else noticed in Hardy that the CapsLock-mapped-as-Backspace doesn't have the repeat that the normal Backspace does? (ie, hold it down and it still only deletes just the one character...) I'm guessing this is related, but it seems new since the upgrade.
Also, I've set Colemak as default but it doesn't seem sticky enough on Login... Wonder why that is...
WorldMaker, that thing about the key not repeating is correct.
...that solution of yours did not occur to me. Interesting.
We seem to have a man on the bug.
Thomas van der Burgt to me
I have fixed the issue, I have added a "CapsLock acts as backspace" to the keyboard options and removed the remapping of the caps lock from the colemak configuration.
One thing that still bothers me is that the keyboard-capslock-inducator-light still switches when hitting caps lock. But that is not specific for this problem.
I will attach the patch if I find out how to make it correctly.
(later)
Hmm, I was wrong it is still not totally fixed. When using 1 layout it
works but when having multiple layouts it does not :S
inducator-light
I guess you typed QWERTY "i" :-)
Ghur rymfgumfr ha;;fkr atgfp pfcfkgij lrukd QWFPGJ.
My typing record: http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=1
Ryan, that text was pasted. Thomas may be new at this ^_^
Sorry I haven't been on your site in a while, by the way-- not having a backspace key doesn't exactly make for the highest accuracy nor speed. It's likely I'll start trying to get faster again after this bug is fixed.
that text was pasted. Thomas may be new at this ^_^
Ah, I see :-)
Sorry I haven't been on your site in a while, by the way-- not having a backspace key doesn't exactly make for the highest accuracy nor speed. It's likely I'll start trying to get faster again after this bug is fixed.
That would seem a challenge!
P.S. You should revisit - I've added something new which you requested last time.
My typing record: http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=1
I tried to take to fix the issue myself, but hacking the GNOME source code is too daunting for me. Unfortunately, the way things are going, it probably won't be fixed in Hardy. The easiest way to workaround the issue it is just create two icons calling scripts that set the keyboard layout manually through the setxkbmap command.
Well then, plan B: Just keep converting people 'till I get a gnome kbd settings maintainer.
In the mean time, people should probably know that they should not expect the colemak included in various X distros to work properly for the next six months.
What about Kubuntu? Do you know if the same bug exists there?
It's a GNOME specific bug, Kubuntu doesn't suffer from the same bug.
Well, I have KDE4 installed beside gnome, and it doesn't seem to work correctly either.. I don't know, I'm confused now...
Maybe you've installed KDE, but the keyboard handling is still done by GNOME for some reason. When I last tested Hardy Kubuntu a month ago with KDE3, it didn't have the issue. I'll check again once the final version of Hardy comes out. Either that or KDE4 introduced a similar bug that didn't occur with KDE3. More investigation is needed.
I just installed Xubuntu 8.04 on an old machine and used the Colemak in the layout switcher. The bug is present there as well.
