Re: Problems with cedil

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 10:26, Pablo Saratxaga wrote:
> Kaixo!
> 
> On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 09:29:25AM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> 
> > Making the default input method an xsettings parameter (and thus
> > possible to hook up to GConf) isn't unreasonable. But I've been
> > reluctant to do a lot of work in connecting an user interface
> > to the GTK+ input module system because:
>  
> >  C) A real solution needs to properly handle remembering the
> >     input method and/or keyboard group per toplevel, xchat
> >     tab, etc.
> 
> I strongly disagree.
> 
> The most usual is to use the *same* input method accross all your desktop;
> I found it very annoying to have to manually change the input method
> for each new launched program; I would prefer to have that setting
> be global by default.
> Or maybe providing two menus for input method: "global input method" and
> "local input method", or adding a toggle entry in input method to
> set the global or local behaviour. 

The general situation is that you have some set of input methods /
keyboard groups that you are selected globally:

 Japanese
 Russian
 English

These represent the languages that the user knows. Within this set,
it's likely that if you start using one of these languages in a 
window (or for tabbed-mdi, mdi tab) then you want to continue using
that language.

Imagine chatting in two different xchat tabs. Or editing code in
one window and writing an email in another. 

The only place where you need a global preference is for creation
of new windows. In that case, you could either:

 - Have a global preference for which of the current input methods / 
   keyboard groups should be the default for new windows

 - Use whatever input method you switched to last

In the interest of simplicity and avoiding settings, I think the second
is probably better, but either works.

One important thing here is having a global indication of what the
current IM / keyboard group is. If the user knows that that will always
be indicated on their panel (or wherever) then it's much easier to
switch as necessary then if they have to guess what is current.

Regards,
						Owen