Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 42731
Should have visual feedback for current keyboard layout (e.g. change in cursor shape)
Last modified: 2013-08-07 15:00:01 UTC
When a user changes the keyboard layout, there should be some form of visual feedback that is easy to be noticed on the screen. Without this feature, the users tend to make errors such as typing Thai when the keyboard layout is English or vice versa. The usual practise (in Thai word processors) is to change the cursor shape. This is implemented in Windows XP's Notepad where the cursor shape changes from a vertical bar to a sort of very narrow L shape whenever the keyboard layout changes from English to Thai. See the screenshot.
Created attachment 22586 [details] (Zoomed) Notepad's caret changes shape when switch to Thai keyboard layout
I'm agree in the general idea that a user should be provided with some (visual, etc.) clue about 1) the change of keyboard layout 2) what is the current keyboard layout For (2), one may argue that most desktop environment (Windows, GNOME, KDE, CDE) already provide some kind of 'area' to show current keyboard layout. But for the user, having to left his/her eyes from the cursor (I-beam) position is distractive (and the user may not even look anywhere else except the cursor position while he/she do typing). Anyway, in the context of multilingual support, say more than two languages, I'm afriad that the 'cursor shape' approach mentioned by samphan@ may be inadequate. May be another solution is to have a small icon/character near by the cursor to indicate the current keyboard layout. The idea is pretty much the same as MS Office, which use a small icon to indicate a current paragraph alignment style (4 icons for: align left, centered, align right, justified). In this keyboard layout indication case, an ISO language code may be appear near be the cursor (assuming the user will using only one keyboard layout per one input language).
confirmed.
set target to OOo Later.
FT: I'm leaving so I will re-assign this issue to requirement default user
OpenOffice.org Issue Tracker - Feedback Request. The Issue you raised is currently assigned to 'Requirements' pending review, but has not been updated within the last 2+ years. Please consider re-testing with one of the latest versions of OOo, as the problem(s) may have already been addressed. Either use the recent stable version: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html or consider trying the new OOo 3 BETA (still in testing): http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/ Please report back the outcome so this Issue may be Closed or Progressed as necessary - otherwise it may be Resolved as Invalid in the future. You may also wish to search for (and note) any duplicates of this Issue that may have advanced further by checking the Issue Tracker: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/query.cgi Many thanks, Andrew Cleaning-up and Closing old Issues as part of: ~ The Grand Bug Squash, pre v3 ~ http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html