Merge Keymap and Keyboad preflets

[rq]

I suggest to merge Keymap and Keyboard preflets, because Keyboard preflet is a really compact one (only has three options), and basically both of them affect keyboard behaviour. The combined preflet could then be called Keyboard, and (I think) it would make stuff less ambigous, because the user would always know that they want to click on Keyboard for keyboard related preferences. I don't think a resulting unified preflet would be too complex.

[axeld]

That's been on my TODO list for a long time now, a ticket surely doesn't hurt there :-)

[Disreali]

This would be nice to have this for R1, but I don't think it is necessary. Is it too much for a GCI task? If so, it could be marked as a GoS task.

[modeenf]

End result, having Keyboard as an option in the menu File in Keymap.

Step to do this?

• Move over files from Keymap to Keyboard and remove keymap. As I don't know Git, are there any preferd way of doing this?
• Merge there application classes.
• Rename Keymap to Keyboard
• Rename Keymap klasses to Keyboard?

Anything missed or are there any better ways??

[lorglas]

I have added an example of what it may look like

[pulkomandy]

There is a larger GSoC project for a generic "input preferences" panel, which would also merge Mouse and Trackpad preferences, and likely add Joystick preferences in there as well. Maybe Shortcuts too.

The idea is also to allow setting different settings for each device. For example different speeds for mouse/touchpad/trackpoint, different layouts for different keyboards, etc.

[waddlesplash]

We've now merged the Keyboard preferences into Input preferences. Should we then just close this as "no change required"?

[pulkomandy]

The keymap preferences is still separate from all the other input things, and it's still not possible to set different keymaps for different keyboards (admittedly an usual setup, but it's a thing I do for a variety of reasons).

[rq]

Could keymap prefs still fit into the unified preflet?

Replying to pulkomandy:

and it's still not possible to set different keymaps for different keyboards (admittedly an usual setup, but it's a thing I do for a variety of reasons).

IMO that should be filed as a separate ticket.

[pulkomandy]

There may be a separate ticket for it already, but it is related, because it's simpler to do this in the UI by reusing the Input preflet (that already shows each keyboard as a separate device). So, these things go together:

If you put the keymap selection into the Input preflet, it has to be filed under a specific device (one of the keyboards, not all of them). Currently the preflet doesn't have a space for options that are global to all devices (it probably should, for example focus follows mouse should be global and not per pointing device). If the keymap is listed under each keyboard device, it should apply separately to each of them. Otherwise, it's a global thing and doesn't really fit into how the Input preferences work currently.

[rq]

I want to hope that the user will be able to configure same keymaps for all keyboards without going through the hassle of doing that for each one of them. Overriding that is okay, but I'm pretty confident that the vast majority won't need the override.

[waddlesplash]

The Input preference panes are right now all about the same size, and all are relatively simple. The Keymap preferences window, on the other hand, is quite large. It would be unwieldy inside the input preferences. And it does change different settings, so I think it should remain separate.

Per-keyboard keymaps should be settable in Input preferences, to be sure, but that should just present a list of the default and custom keymaps as configured in Keymap preferences, which a button to open Keymap preferences and edit them, probably. (And probably the "per-keyboard keymap" should itself be a setting that's turned off by default, as on most setups people will want just one keymap.)

[nephele]

on most setups people will want just one keymap.

That makes no sense to me. Keymaps are keyboard specific, why would I want the same for all keyboards? Clearly it should be per-keyboard per default.

I have a french azerty keyboard in a laptop, if I connect a german keyboard I want a german keymap. And if the keyboard has a proper language defined like on apple ones It should pick the proper one even without intervention.

Connecting a second keyboard to a laptop is quite common, and atleast at my small sample size here at home usually involves keyboards with different layouts (my non-techy sibling has an american keyboard layout for the laptop for example)

[waddlesplash]

Well, if you're an American with all American keyboards, then you probably want the same keyboard layout for all keyboards. But it's also rare to plug in more than one keyboard, I suppose...

[pulkomandy]

It's not necessarily about the entire layout, for example I would like to switch some keys around just on m laptop keyboard to swap page up/down with home/end because the manufacturer put them in an unconvenient place. But I don't want this to affect an external keyboard when I use one.

[X512]

I agree. Per keyboard settings may be undesired in many cases. Personally I consider it as misfeature that makes more harm than benefits. When I connect external keyboard, I expect it will work the same and will have the same layout as existing one.

[X512]

Also users of multiple keymaps such as English/Russian usually use keymap switching by some shortcut instead of 2 separate physical keyboards.

[rq]

Replying to pulkomandy:

It's not necessarily about the entire layout, for example I would like to switch some keys around just on m laptop keyboard to swap page up/down with home/end because the manufacturer put them in an unconvenient place. But I don't want this to affect an external keyboard when I use one.

I thought this might be something like this. Or something like moving around the Cmd/Ctrl/Alt to make your Mac and non-Mac keyboards match. But I think this is something an advanced user would do. Maybe it would make sense to allow selecting layouts without actually generating the big editable preview, and instead allow to customize them further in a separate pop-up dialog? Or is this against the HIG?

[pulkomandy]

Also users of multiple keymaps such as English/Russian usually use keymap switching by some shortcut instead of 2 separate physical keyboards.

Every situation is different. As nephele mentionned, he wants to use both azerty and qwertz to match his hardware. My setup is similar: I use my laptop in azerty but my external keyboard in spanish qwerty.

I agree that this is an unusual setup, and that the default should be that the keymap applies to all keyboards. But I think it should still be possible to do it.

Maybe it is uncommon enough that I should write some variant of keymap switcher for this, and not have it in the main os.