Re: [Usability] Keyboard layout preview in gnome-control-center

["Sergey V. Udaltsov" <sergey_udaltsov pochta ru>]

> A new tab is probably not the way to go for this.  Perhaps we can first
> construct a storyboard for how this system is used and who it is used
> by.  Then we can try to model the best interaction after that.
Well, the story is very simple (well, at least as I see it).

First, this feature (like all the layouts configuration stuff) is only 
interesting for people using non-US layouts.

Once such a user wants to use his national layout - in most cases, it 
has to choose which variant he/she wants to use - because most of 
layouts contain more than one variant. As one Ukrainian person said 
(translation from Russian):
"For now, when I want to choose a suitable keyboard variant, I have to 
try all available variants and with each variant, press EVERY key TWICE 
(with and without Shift pressed)". FYI, currently there are 3 Russian 
variants in xorg distribution - and IIRC it is not the largest number 
for one country/language. So this preview screen allows to estimate 
visually whether the choosen layout and variant match the idea of the 
user of what they should be. Ideally, user should be able to see the 
layout selection widgets (tabs 2 and 3) and the preview - at the same 
time, simultaniously. So the "separate window" solution looks good from 
this POV - but the screen cluttering is my concern here.

BTW, this is not about variants only. Some countries even have several 
layouts (well, this is for historical reasons, xkeyboard-config is going 
to change this) - but for now, all existing X servers (up to xfree 4.4.0 
and xorg 6.7.0) provide SEVERAL US layouts. Which one should user 
choose? How can he/she guess without spending time pressing each button?

> This is auto-generated rendering of the keyboard layout?  A little tough
> on the eyes, but pretty cool stuff. ;-)
Exactly. It needs some polishing - but we cannot improve it much (other 
than smoothing edges, improve labels placement etc) - because the 
geometry is generally described in X server geometry.

Regards,

Sergey