Input Method in IBus Preferences conflicting with the Layouts tab in MATE Keyboard Preferences

changed title from Input Method in IBus Preferences conflict with Layouts in Keyboard Preferences to Input Method in IBus Preferences conflicting with Layouts in Keyboard Preferences

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Note that this conflict also reflects on keyboard layout indicators. As things stand:

the IBus keyboard indicator is not selected by default in IBus Preferences. If set, it does not appear because it only shows in the Notification Area, which is not part of the default Trisquel 11 panel layout.
the ayatana keyboard indicator shows in the Indicator Applet (and Complete) but is stuck on the defaut layout because it gets its cues from Keyboard Preferences and not from IBus Preferences.

This adds to the confusion of having conflicting user interfaces for keyboard layouts, but could be easily remedied for the time being by adding a Notification Area to the panel, checking the keyboard indicator box in IBus Preferences, and removing ayatana-indicator-keyboard.

EDIT: better described with screenshots by @David_Hedlund:

Default settings, for some reasons the Ayatana Keyboard Indicator icon is not showing in Indicator Applet Complete:

Add the "Notification Area" to MATE's Panel
Open mate-keyboard-properties: Go to the "Layouts" tab and add another keyboard layout
Open ibus-setup: In the General tab: Enable "Show icon on system tray". Open the "Input Method" tab:

mentioned in issue #100 (closed)

We should find and fix issues with ibus, as it will work 98% of the times, as for trisquel ibus is "the tool".

I don't see anytime soon these two features, Keyboard Preferences and ibus, will integrate, so I suggest we fix the ibus issues. Along making more prominent the ibus usage, so people know where to go before they go the keyboard preferences rabbit hole.

I personally think is better we keep up with the latest improvements and fixes for ibus and help people learn about the new ways use language input management than butcher keyboard preferences, just because we don't use it, this doesn't mean it is not used.

As for the notification area, it is my personal opinion, that the trisquel default style tries to keep a minimalist / clean approach, the notification area can be easily added just like adding a second keyboard layout with ibus.

Update: How is this a problem with the rest of DE? Are we talking about mate only?

Regards

just because we don't use it, this doesn't mean it is not used.

I am using it. I have nonetheless repeatedly been guiding users in the forum to the IBus preferences, and insisting this is the recommended path, including by referring to your own posts in the forum.

Are we talking about mate only?

Yes, we are talking about users who used the default Trisquel MATE install. The situation is similar with Trisquel Mini and LXDE, but expectedly no Mini user complained. Going the extra mile to configure your system is the general idea with Mini, arguably even more so than with Trisquel default. It seems that GNOME users can access iBus as default input method from the keyboard settings interface, if I am not mistaken, but this does not seem to be planned in MATE.

I am not personally concerned by this situation, nor convinced that forcing one input method (there are also XIM and Fcixt5, and possibly others) into the keyboard settings is necessarily a good idea, so you can close this any time.

the notification area can be easily added just like adding a second keyboard layout with ibus.

I have to disagree with this, though. Many users are not aware that adding the "Notification area" will bring the iBus icon, in addition to the keyboard layout icon in the "Indicator Applet". I believe this is why they get confused when the icon, the layout settings and the keyboard shortcut tell different stories.

There is no way to add layouts through Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse in Trisquel Mini , so there is no redundancy whatsoever with the input method set in IBus Preferences. Also, the iBus icon immediately shows on the panel if selected. This is perfect, Mini rocks.

Nice!, this mean the issue is kind of localized, so we can think on a localized solution.

Thank you for reporting the issue, if you keep reporting I'll keep looking up for how they can be solved.

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changed title from Input Method in IBus Preferences conflicting with Layouts in Keyboard Preferences to Input Method in IBus Preferences conflicting with the Layouts tab in MATE Keyboard Preferences

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@prospero Can you please add the screenshots to the top? Here's the markup:

To reproduce:
* [Add the "Notification Area" to MATE's Panel](https://gitlab.trisquel.org/trisquel/package-helpers/-/issues/100)
* Open `mate-keyboard-properties`: Go to the "Layouts" tab and add another keyboard layout
* Open `ibus-setup`: In the General tab: Enable "Show icon on system tray". Open the "Input Method" tab:

![Screenshot_trisquel_11.0_amd64.iso-keyboard_2023-08-29_13_19_17](/uploads/a6e313fd9faf4c5fee8340a76a8da289/Screenshot_trisquel_11.0_amd64.iso-keyboard_2023-08-29_13_19_17.png)

![image](/uploads/b47d86717c5c02dc0678a0b5af1edd4a/image.png)

I just saw this now, thanks. I added your input above.

That's kind, but I meant to the absolute top post "On Trisquel 11 Aramo with MATE, it is my understand..." -- it would be nice to see the screenshots there. =)

Oh I see. I thought you were specifically referring to the icons, while the issue is about the more general situation of having two interfaces, even if the icons are not showing by default.

By the way, could you check whether ayatana-indicator-keyboard is installed by default? I thought it was, but I may be mistaken about that.

Sure: ayatana-indicator-keyboard is installed by default.

Then I am not sure why it is not showing on your screenshots.

Can you instruct me how to enable it?
Can you also send a screenshot of Trisquel with ayatana-indicator-keyboard displayed?

I can't remember how to do it just now, I had been testing these indicators quite extensively. I'll edit this when I find out. Thanks!

EDIT: oh yes, I went to Startup Applications and checked it. "Show hidden" must be checked. Or whatever other way these values may be modified. Then log out and back in.

UPDATE: I just tried it, and this is not straightforward, it took several trials. You need to make sure that Ayatana Indicator Keyboard is selected in Startup Applications, but this may not be enough. I also had to open Ayatana Settings (installed with the ayatana-settings package) and switch it back and forth a couple of times until it appeared. Screenshots coming soon.

The left hand side icons are from Notification Area, the right hand side icon is the Ayatana Indicator Keyboard icon in the Indicator Applet. I could not find a way to make Ayatana Indicator Keyboard take its cues from the iBus settings.

I will add a screenshot with the default settings (without Notification Area) if you manage to make the Ayatana Indicator Keyboard icon appear in the Indicator Applet. In fact, I will also add one if you cannot make it appear, since this is also a bug. My desktop is a bit too personalized to make good screenshots for issue reports, it may be better to use the default layout.

I recommend that you install virt-manager, install a Trisquel virtual machine, clone (copy) it, and modify the settings, if you want to take screenshots. That is how we are doing it (I, Luis, Ruben, etc).

This is the reason why I am using your screenshots instead

Are you on IRC?

Not much these days, I am not flexible enough to do live stuff currently. But you can email me. I also find emails more readable, in general. Old school person here.

I am thinking that there are in fact three intertwinned topics here:

redundant and possibly conflicting graphical interfaces to manage keyboard layout preferences
keyboard layout panel icons,
keyboard shortcut to switch layouts.

As things stand, (1) is not considered a bug, so the only confirmed bug in (2) seems to be that the Ayatana Indicator Keyboard icon is not showing as expected, even after adding a layout through Keyboard Preferences (mate-keyboard-properties). This is what I am going to try and chase further, since it is part of the default configuration based on MATE.

The keyboard layout icon redundancy is only a consequence of (1) when a Notification Area is added to the panel. So I believe this is in fact working as expected since each interface is expected to have its own icon. Additionally, if only one layout is present in mate-keyboard-properties, its icon is not showing in the Notification Area, and only the iBus icon is going to show there if checked.

As for (3), on my system the default shortcut Super+Space only works once with layouts defined through mate-keyboard-propertie. If I add one layout, I can only switch back to the default layout using that shortcut. If I add two layouts, the shortcut only works once or twice, depending on how the layouts are ordered. That same shortcut works with iBus, although only if focus is on a text area: text box or text editor.

I agree that in this issue we are discussing more than what normally would meet the eye at a first glance.

I did try installing ayatana-settings and now the ayatana-indicator-keyboard selector shows in the indicator area, which would add more confusion to the mix, as it is not the ibus one.

None the less ibus keeps working properly, and the keyboard on the indicator will show the last language set by ibus on the previous session. The issue is that if I have 2, 3 or 4 keyboard layouts on ibus, then the ayatana-indicator-keyboard on the indicator area is static, and will not reflect the dynamic changes I can make with "Super + Space Bar" on ibus.

So I would vote to simplify and move in the ibus direction on mate, as it seem to allow a more advance solution regardless the DE we choose.

Maybe remove the ayatana-indicator-keyboard fron the trisquel meta package, we should emphasize that adding more than one keyboard on trisquel (mate) is advised to use ibus as input method manager, and as a possible last step, add notification area so ibus and other apps are shown there.

AFAIK the notification area got removed since in the past some applications had issues with it, maybe as of today that's not an issue anymore, it will be a god idea to confirm.

I think it would serve for the community to document ibus as the trisquel proposal as the input method tool, elaborate on the capabilities and restrictions of each solution, and leave the choose to them.

AFAIK the notification area got removed since in the past some applications had issues with it, maybe as of today that's not an issue anymore, it will be a god idea to confirm.

Thank you. I quoted this to #100 (closed)

I am sure @Ark74 is aware of the content of his own posts.

maybe as of today that's not an issue anymore, it will be a god idea to confirm.

Some icons may still be duplicated, or oversized, in the notification area. Look at that gajim giant for instance:

But the main user feedback seems to be that some icons are missing if the Notification Area applet is not present. I am also getting the icons for Sylpheed and Audacious there, in addition to the ones that have already been mentioned in #100 (closed), although I cannot say that I miss them if the notification area is not present: I am simply using the application window itself. In fact, I am not sure how necessary (vs. clotting the panel) application icons really are, contrary to status icons (volume, network, battery, clock, session) which tell something by themselves that may require several clicks to find out otherwise.

But then, the keyboard lock indicators (caps. lock, num. lock and scroll lock) are also showing in the notification area if they have been activated in MATE Tweak. It may also be a good way to guide users to iBus if its icon shows on the panel by default, in addition to the layout switch popup - which I find highly convenient, and is only provided by iBus. So, all in all, there may indeed be a case to bring the Notification Area back. This may create a bit of a mess for some users, but I would argue that it is easier to identify what needs to be removed than to look for what needs to be added.

Note however that the right vs. left click behavior is not the same in the Notification Area and in the Indicator Applet:

Notification Area: left click on the icon minimizes/restores the application window, right click opens the application menu.
Indicator Applet: left click opens the application menu, right click opens the contextual panel menu for Indicator Applet.

So yes, the best I can think of for the moment would be to remove Ayatana Indicator Keyboard to make sure it will not show up and get stuck, which is possibly the main source of confusion, configure iBus to show its icon by default, and maybe add the notification area. I am planning to write some material about input methods and layouts, the documentation needs an entry on the topic that users can be referred to. Is it also possible to modify the content of the MATE help entry? If so, we could add a line there to advise about iBus.

Some icons may still be duplicated, or oversized, in the notification area. Look at that gajim giant for instance:

Please add Notificaion Area-specific issues to Add "Notification Area" to MATE's Panel to make it useful.

It is already there, I borrowed it from your own screenshot:

https://gitlab.trisquel.org/trisquel/package-helpers/uploads/208ed852cc0652a3d35569577be63f10/Screenshot_0-trisquel_11.0_amd64.iso-default-clone_2023-08-03_08_05_12.png

Look for a little lamb and a giant dummy.

Thanks

You are welcome.

I believe we are coordinating quite well. Ark74 is clearly using high-voltage issue triaging mana.

...to modify the content of the MATE help entry?

Could you be a bit more specific on what command or package summons that help page?

Clicking on the "Help" button on the bottom left corner of the mate-keyboard-properties window.

But the main user feedback seems to be that some icons are missing if the Notification Area applet is not present. I am also getting the icons for Sylpheed and Audacious there, in addition to the ones that have already been mentioned in #100 (closed), although I cannot say that I miss them if the notification area is not present: I am simply using the application window itself. In fact, I am not sure how necessary (vs. clotting the panel) application icons really are, contrary to status icons (volume, network, battery, clock, session) which tell something by themselves that may require several clicks to find out otherwise.

I'm not convinced that the Notification Area should come back as you have pointed out it may add several icons, eats the window lists space and may add some other conflicts / confusion. But if it proves to not break something, and improve the UX I think it could be very likely put on the table to be back by Ruben's approval.

I think we should be careful as things change on each LTS, so by the time we get on the next release our changes get broken or behaviors change just as the volume adjustment popup.
Maybe track the upstream behavior and plan this for the next release?

I'll go over this thread on the next meeting if possible, as Ruben is still traveling.

Maybe track the upstream behavior and plan this for the next release?

Yes, in my mind this is aiming at next release. This issue can be left to mature until more upstream info is available.

For the time being, I am trying to prepare a draft based on the current MATE settings. I believe the best category to insert some material in the documentation is Language and Accessibility. The current iBus related page only mentions "non-Latin laguages", this should probably be amended to include any language.

Short draft:

"IBus is the default interface to manage keyboard layouts and input methods. IBus settings are managed in System > Preferences > Other > Ibus Preferences.

[...] installing non-Latin methods if necessary: ibus-anthy, etc. [...]

If you want the iBus layout icon to show in the panel, you can add a Notification Area where suitable and check the "Show icon on system tray" option in the "General" tab in Ibus Preferences. A layout status popup will also be displayed while using the Super+Space keyboard shortcut to cycle between layouts.

It is also possible to use the Keyboard Properties interface in System > Preferences > Hardware > Keyboard, but it is avised not to use the "Layouts" tab there, and instead to add layouts through the "Input Method" tab in IBus Preferences."

Added https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/configuring-keyboard-input-methods.

WIP: still need to improve text and add screenshots.

From the last development meeting, it got stated that any change should at least not affect the a11y (accessibility), better yet improve it.

As that's the one important point to take care when thinking on this kind of changes.

This is a very effective criteria.

Given your above merge requests, it looks like what could be done to improve things has been done. The documentation page for iBus is now updated, so I may suggest David Hedlund add some nice screenshots there in his spare time.

Other than that, this can be closed when you deem it fit.

I don't know specifically what the screenshots should capture. I think you can take them yourself. Furthermore, if you don't want to use virt-manager, I suggest that you add a new user account to Trisquel to generate default settings. However, in the long-term virtualization is less time-consuming.

mentioned in merge request trisquel-packages!104 (merged)

mentioned in merge request !1179 (merged)

added Doing confirmed labels

I'm closing this as,

mate-keyboard-settings help now recommends users to use ibus instead - !1179 (merged)
Wiki has been updated - https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/configuring-keyboard-input-methods
Trisquel 11.0 (MATE) no longer recommends ayatana-indicator-keyboard - trisquel-packages!104 (merged)

ibus already support new indicators on Wayland (GNOME/KDE) on the latest upstream release, but other DE are not yet supported like Mate, XFCE, so we might like to follow up ibus development.

Regards.

closed

Input Method in IBus Preferences conflicting with the Layouts tab in MATE Keyboard Preferences

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