[Spice-devel] Keyboard layout change on Xspice
Alon Levy
alevy at redhat.com
Tue Apr 10 03:41:39 PDT 2012
On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 12:08:31PM +0200, David Jaša wrote:
> Alon Levy píše v So 07. 04. 2012 v 13:21 +0300:
> > On Fri, Apr 06, 2012 at 09:11:11PM +0200, David Jaša wrote:
> > > Hi David,
> > >
> > > David Mansfield píše v Pá 06. 04. 2012 v 14:17 -0400:
> > > >
> > > > On 04/06/2012 03:05 AM, Alon Levy wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Apr 05, 2012 at 12:52:53PM -0400, David Mansfield wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On 04/05/2012 11:58 AM, Alon Levy wrote:
> > > > >>> On Thu, Apr 05, 2012 at 01:24:54PM +0200, Michael Niehren wrote:
> > > > >>>> Hi together,
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> i successfully installed and connected to Xspice und FC16, great work, i was very pleased
> > > > >>>> to see, what's possible with spice.
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> 1 thing left to use it as an Server to connect from my thin client is the keyboard layout.
> > > > >>>> As i live in Germany i want to have the german keyboard layout. If i connect with the
> > > > >>>> spice-client i only got the english one. Is there a way to change that (i didn's find one)
> > > > >>>> ?
> > > > >>> (Continuing my previous reply). OK - tried a non english keyboard
> > > > >>> (hebrew), and it works fine. The thing to understand is that changing
> > > > >>> the keyboard mapping on the client doesn't affect the server - only
> > > > >>> changes on the server side affect it. So to get a german keyboard, you'd
> > > > >>> need to change the keyboard on the remote side, the server, for instance
> > > > >>> I just used "setxkbmap il" to change the keymap to the hebrew one on the
> > > > >>> remote side.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> I've been troubled by this too, because I use DVORAK mapping. Is
> > > > >> there anything in the pipeline for the spice-agent to address this?
> > > > >
> > > > > I don't think there is anything to fix, unless I misunderstand - the way
> > > > > it works is that the keyboard map is determined by the Xspice Xserver
> > > > > entirely, and not by the spice client. That's the way spice keyboard
> > > > > works, and it avoids having to encode anything about the keyboard map at
> > > > > the spice level. The spice keyboard protocol is the same an AT keyboard
> > > > > talks to the pc.
> > > > >
> > > > > A spice agent would help other things, like copy paste support, and
> > > > > better mouse performance for latency laden networks, but has nothing to
> > > > > offer for keyboard - I don't see what there is to fix here, maybe you
> > > > > can explain.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > I didn't read that this discussion was specific to Xspice, which while
> > > > I've tried, I was referring to spice access to a VM. Nevertheless, the
> > > > agent could perhaps be used to automatically set the server-side
> > > > keyboard mapping to that of the client, both in the Xspice and VM case,
> > > > I suppose.
> > > >
> > > > In a perfect-world scenario, the keyboard mapping setting would be
> > > > magically adjusted the client side mapping upon connect.
> > >
> > > It's not that easy:
> > > * there must be exactly same keymaps in client & guest. This is a
> > > _big_ problem since even console & X keymaps of the same name in
> > > linux are not the same
> > > * you have to take layout switching into account:
> > > * when not focused, watch for layout state in client and
> > > change it in guest accordingly
> > > * find out what shortcut client desktop uses for layout
> > > switching, trap it, pass it always to the client
> > > regardless of keyboard grab and switch layout in the
> > > guest
> > > * watch for layout changes in guest (e.g. when linux
> > > client uses shift+capslock and windows guest L_alt
> > > +shift) and propagate them back to the client
> > > * you should not break magic like mutter's one for alt
> > > +key-above-tab:
> > > http://git.gnome.org/browse/mutter/tree/src/core/above-tab-keycode.c
> > >
> > > I'd love to see it too but it seems so hard to get it right that it's
> > > not worth it - unless you'll find somebody to step up and write the
> > > actual code. :)
> >
> > The thing is, for virtual machines where you work in full screen all of
> > this is not very interesting. The keypresses that trigger language
> > changes (i.e. keymap changes) get passes just to the vm and it does
> > whatever it does to change the keymap, and it just works, without all of
> > the above.
>
> There is just one annoying thing about it - when different shortcuts are
> used byt client and guest systems. I got used to shift+capslock at at my
> linux client where I spend most of time and when I have to work with
> windows guest, I keep swearing why I have the other keymap after I
> "switched" it and why I have the CapsLock turned on...
>
> > No coordination is required. I like the detailed description
> > - and from looking at it it's obvious this is not trivial to implement
> > and easy to get almost working but not 100%. Maybe worth writing this
> > down on the wiki.
> >
> > But for Xspice it's actually really required. And it's an easier case -
> > just an X "guest", not multi platform (still multiple platforms on the
> > client side though).
> >
>
> I see it.
>
> Actually, I'd like to see spice-based analogy of 'ssh -X' sometimes in
> the future and this would be one of prerequisites for it (the other are
> rootless Xspice, connection over unix socket etc.)
I would appreciate if you created bugs for these. The rootless case - we
are talking about Xspice being it's own window manager, so that you can
run a single X client?
>
> David
>
> > >
> > > David
> > >
> > > > I'm not saying
> > > > it's the highest priority problem in the world, but it is a bit
> > > > surprising at first when it doesn't work.
> > > >
> > > > Or maybe it's supposed to work in the VM setting and just isn't for me.
> > > >
> > > > Anayway, don't worry about it.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > David
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Spice-devel mailing list
> > > > Spice-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
> > > > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/spice-devel
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > David Jaša, RHCE
> > >
> > > SPICE QE based in Brno
> > > GPG Key: 22C33E24
> > > Fingerprint: 513A 060B D1B4 2A72 7F0D 0278 B125 CD00 22C3 3E24
> > >
> > >
> > >
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>
> --
>
> David Jaša, RHCE
>
> SPICE QE based in Brno
> GPG Key: 22C33E24
> Fingerprint: 513A 060B D1B4 2A72 7F0D 0278 B125 CD00 22C3 3E24
>
>
>
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