Re: Accelerators fail when writing non-latin for Firefox (GTK+ 2.0)

[Simos Xenitellis <simos74 gmx net>]

Hi Danilo,

Στις 06/Δεκ/2004, ημέρα Δευτέρα και ώρα 01:09, ο/η Danilo Segan έγραψε:
> Hi Simos,
> 
> I don't have experience with Firefox on this, but I have some
> experience with Gtk+ and XKB and other programs :)
> 
> Yesterday at 23:51, Simos Xenitellis wrote:
> 
> > I have noticed that Firefox 1.0 (standard, compiled with GTK+2.0) ignore
> > shortcuts when you have setup the keyboard to write in a language
> > different to English. For example, I select text in the address bar of
> > Firefox, press Ctrl-X but nothing happens.
> >
> > I have tried with Greek (using XKB). I am running FC2.
> >
> > 1. Is this a GTK+ 2.x issue or a Firefox issue?
> 
> It's most probably Firefox issue: it "grabs" the keyboard, so Gtk+
> does nothing with it.  You can check that very simply: try
> Ctrl+Shift+Alt+numbers to get Unicode characters (what you can do in
> any Gtk+ input field).

Actually I noticed that the Ctrl-Shift-Alt+hex-numbers combination works
on Firefox 1.0 and Linux, in any text field (address bar, Google Search,
HTML text boxes, etc). However, when I right-click on the text field, I
indeed do not get the option to choose an input method, as it happens on
"pure" GTK+ applications.

> > 2. Does it happen to other users as well? 
> 
> Most probably.  It happens for me for any program that uses Gtk+ and
> still "grabs" the keyboard to process events itself (eg. Emacs).

ack.

> > 3. Should I bother downstream on this?
> 
> I doubt they'll care too much about this specific issue.  I remember
> Ivan Pascal adding something similar to what Gtk+ does into core XKB
> post 4.3.0 time, but I don't know what X version are you using, and
> whether this actually works or is it included in X.org.

I am running FC2 and xorg-6.7.0-10.

> OTOH, with this should go also support for Gtk+ input methods, so
> it's probably something they're already considering in terms of Gtk+
> integration.

I followed the advice of Owen to report and did a search in
bugzilla.mozilla.org before filing a bug report.
I found https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69230 (Accelerators
should not be affected by keyboard group/level) which I think describes
exactly the problem. It's a rather old issue (created in 2001, last
touched in 2002) and I think it might be related to gtk-1.x.

In GTK-1.x it was a known issue that access keys fail when writing
non-latin. For a summary, see
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2002-February/msg00051.html

I also noticed another Mozilla Bugzilla issue that might be similar:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88380
"+ and - Keyboard accelerators inaccessible on international keyboards
(larger/smaller font size)"

and a third one at
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50255
"some control key sequences don't generate the correct event (ctrl-enter
...)"

At https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164793
titled "can't use gtk2 input modules ?" they discuss the issue of
enabling the input modules option in Firefox. I believe Owen you should
have a look here as they mention you :).

Maybes:
a. Unable to input Latin-1 chars using US keyboard with input locale set
to CJK
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98376
b. Gtk2 XIM : Multi input context is not separated
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218155
c. No way to switch the GTK input modules
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=214412
extract: "Yeah, SCIM and IIIIMF should 'solve' this problem without
anything changed on
the part of Mozilla. "

I'ld like to verify first in Windows if accelerators work while writing
in Greek, so to tackle appropriatelly.

My plan is to add this info to the bugzilla reports, focusing on
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69230
which should carry all the information.

Simos

p.s.
With regards to GTK+, Firefox is downstream as a user of the library. If
they make any changes to GTK+, they are supposed to move upstream...