Bug 4526 - Consider having US keyboard maps by default
Summary: Consider having US keyboard maps by default
Status: CLOSED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: ThinLinc
Classification: Unclassified
Component: VNC (show other bugs)
Version: trunk
Hardware: PC Unknown
: P2 Normal
Target Milestone: 4.1.0
Assignee: Pierre Ossman
URL:
Keywords: astrand_tester
Depends on:
Blocks: keyboard
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Reported: 2013-01-28 16:33 CET by Peter Åstrand
Modified: 2013-05-27 14:35 CEST (History)
0 users

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Description Peter Åstrand cendio 2013-01-28 16:33:29 CET
Currently, the default configuration is to start Xvnc with a simulated Swedish physical keyboard, ie xserver_args contains "-KeyboardMap=sv". Also, /appservergroups/rdp/default/keyboard_layout is set to "sv". The reasoning behind this is that Swedish can be considered a superset of the US map. Thus, we can have a solution that works with most keyboard symbols and applications in the default configuration for both Nordic countries as well as the US/UK. 

However, as pointed out by http://lists.cendio.se/pipermail/thinlinc-technical/2013-January/000216.html, this isn't entirely true: If you have different keybindings for "X-symbol" and "X-Shift-symbol", you will have problems if the symbol can only be found in a shifted column in the keyboard map. This is the case with semicolon in the swedish layout. 

One solution could be to try to identify that cases where this is a problem, and add those symbols in unshifted columns as well. But that could be difficult or even impossible, and the keyboard layout would no longer match the keyboard layout of a physical workstation. 

Another solution is to use US keyboard maps by default instead. In that case, we would need to check what problems we will have with Swedish keyboards. In theory, well-behaved applications should work.
Comment 1 Pierre Ossman cendio 2013-04-15 16:35:42 CEST
Bug 3074 changed the default Xvnc layout to "us". appservergroups.hconf updated in r27079.
Comment 2 Pierre Ossman cendio 2013-04-16 11:07:26 CEST
Changing the layout rdesktop has more severe consequences than for Xvnc, so a discussion is warranted.
Comment 3 Pierre Ossman cendio 2013-04-16 13:03:41 CEST
Options for rdesktop and the problems it causes:

a) Default layout: en-us

Non-ascii characters will not work. This includes common Swedish characters like åäö, the german ü, etc.

b) Default layout: sv

Same problem as for X11; pressing things like Alt+; results in Alt+Shift+; on the WTS.

Swedish characters work, but characters from other layouts, like german, are still broken.

c) Default layout: de

Same issues as for 'se' really, just a different set of characters that are affected.

d) Default layout: none

rdesktop will in this mode look at the locale and make a guess. As long as people use their local language and not English, then this has a high probability of guessing the correct layout.
Comment 4 Pierre Ossman cendio 2013-04-17 12:35:40 CEST
We've decided on d). Need to check the documentation as well to make sure that behaviour is documented.
Comment 5 Pierre Ossman cendio 2013-04-17 13:40:02 CEST
Fixed in r27098.
Comment 6 Peter Åstrand cendio 2013-05-27 14:35:59 CEST
Works great.

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