[Thinlinc-technical] XKB based keyboard switching not working...

[Jens Langner]

Hi,

Am 30.05.2013 um 11:16 schrieb Peter Astrand <astrand at cendio.se>:

> However, I think you will be glad to hear that in 4.1, we have done a lot of work on XKB, and it will also be enabled by default. This should solve a lot of issues.

Indeed I am glad to hear that you have spent some work on improving XKB support in ThinLinc. Looking forward to testing the beta version as soon as it is available.

> When it comes to layout switching, it is unfortunately not possible to solve it entirely on the server side. We are using the VNC protocol, which is based on "high level" keyboard symbols, rather than physical keys. This has some advantages. For example, in a scenario where multiple clients are connected to the same session (shadowing), the two users/clients can use two different keyboard layouts at the same time, working in the same session. So with our approach, it is in principle not necessary to change the layout in the server session. If the server recieves an "unknown" keyboard symbol (keysym), it will dynamically add it to the active layout.
> 
> However, this does mean that you need to change the layout on the client side. What kind of clients are you using? Are you running in fullscreen or window mode?

We are using intel NUC based Thinclients together with the "thinstation" linux distribution which always pops up ThinLinc in full-screen mode. 

> In many cases, the client OS provides keyboard shortcuts and/or GUIs for switching layouts. This should work even while being connected to the session. Unfortunately, there's a known bug for UNIX clients in this area which may or may not affect you:
> 
> https://www.cendio.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4653
> 
> This bug is not scheduled for 4.1.

As it seems, we are lucky in not being affected by this bug. In fact, we just found out ourselves 10 minutes ago that we can define all possible keyboard layouts before starting the X-server at the client side (on our thin clients) using an "setxkbmap" command sequence with an option to use a keyboard shortcut to switch between layouts. That seems to work fine so far. However, the only problem with that approach is, that within the session the user cannot have an indicator applet to show the keyboard layout he is currently using. In addition, if connecting from another client (e.g. at home) he still doesn't have any possibility in switching keyboard layouts.

> A beta version of TL 4.1 will be available in about 1 week. My suggestion is that you try it out, and see if it solves your problems. (The latest nightly build of the client is already/always available for download, but again, most of the keyboard changes are on the server side.)

Really looking forward in testing that version!

best regards,
jens
-- 
Dr. Jens Langner
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research
Department of Positron Emission Tomography
POB 51 01 19, 01314 Dresden, Germany
http://www.hzdr.de/ | +49 351 260 2757

Vorstand: Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Roland Sauerbrey
Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Peter Joehnk
VR 1693 beim Amtsgericht Dresden

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