Please, make order in keyboard languages configuration or add Gswitchit before GNOME 2.4

[Mantas =?iso-8859-13?q?Kriau=E8i=FBnas?= <monte mail lt>]

Hi,

There are lots of problems in gkb-applet, because this applet doesn't work correctly with lots of xkb keyboard configurations.

Many people simply don't use Gnome, because they can't find how to change keyboard language in Gnome. This is because of two problems:
 1. There are no possibility to set main keyboard language in Gnome Control Center (see "Applications"->"Desktop preferences" in menu panel). 
 2. Even if user finds how to add gkb applet to panel - he mixes up in gkb preferences, because  now all
countries have minimum 2 identifical (sometimes one keymap is outdated while other isn't working with gkb...) keymaps - County keymap and Country xkb keymap (for example Finland has Finland keymap and Finland
xkb keymap), this misleads a lot of users, they don't know which keymap to choose.

But sometimes international keyboards don't work in Gnome even if user finds, adds and configures gkb applet.
Problem is, that gkb applet doesn't work with xkb groups, but xfree86 developers maintain only xkb symbol files (because of this lots of xmodmap files, distributed with gkb applet are outdated) and very often (for example in Lithuanian - lt, Russian - ru, Latvian - lv, etc. - see files in /etc/X11/xkb/symbols or look at http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/xkbcomp/symbols/) there are two xkb groups in one file and first group is us-english. Then gkb only switches to 'us' keymap (because 'us' group is first) instead of switching to international keymap - second group in xkb symbol files.

Solution is to use libxklavier library from gswitchit applet. I think gkb and gswitchit applets should be merged and xkb-related stuff should be done with libxklavier library.

Gkb maintainer Szabolcs Ban is planning to do such a step - see http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96215

But it seems, that he needs help, because of free time problem. Maybe someone can help - I think it would be very useful to have a *working* and user-friendly keyboad configuration in Gnome 2.4. For more info see comments on these bugs:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80585
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96215
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108446

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89979

If nobody likes to do this - just include Gswitchit in Gnome 2.4 - this utility works correctly with xkb keymaps and also has item in Gnome Control Panel - e.g. solves both problems and then more people can use Gnome.

Btw, there are one more Gnome2 problem - now it's very complicated to add some applet to panel, because this function is reachable only from context (right click) menu and newbies never find this :(. I think item "Add to panel" should be added to "Actions" menu or to Gnome Control Center (see "Applications"->"Desktop preferences" in menu panel)

Should I report this problem to bugzilla.gnome.org ?

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Jabber ID: mantas akl lt		ICQ: mantiena <44451746>