[ammen99]

As the maintainer of Wayfire, I would like to say why I don't consider this a critical issue: the current system allows you to bind actions to a particular physical key. So, no matter what physical keyboard layout and actual layout in software, with the current system, you can bind the action to the desired physical key. Or do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?

[jraph]

> Or do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?

That's what actually happens everywhere. For instance undo is usually CTRL+Z. On QWERTY that will be CTRL + the key at the left side of the X, and on AZERTY that will be CTRL+the key at the left side of the E. Therefore, that's the behavior people expect and it has advantages. Having to write KEY_Z to actually have KEY_W is also jarring and very counter-intuitive. That also means UIs don't have to translate key bindings, unless they want them to correspond to some word (for instance word processors have CTRL+B for bold in English, but CTRL+G is allowed in French (Bold = Gras).

Now I also understand the benefits of your choice, and I appreciate that nobody is entitled to make you change this in any case. At worse everybody should be thankful for your choice to release this work as open source and spend time on it to the benefit of everyone. I'm also not a user so I don't have any stake in this.

[ammen99]

I am mostly trying to understand what people actually use. I hate exactly this thing in most applications: ctrl-z doesn't work when I use the german layout (usually I use qwerty/us), and assumed most people would dislike it as well...

[ForkMeOnTinder]

I personally like the flexibility of i3's keybinding config.[1] For each binding it lets you choose either:

- a keysym (the letter Z, wherever it happens to be in your current layout)

- or a keycode/scancode (the physical button under your pinky, no matter the current layout)

I use both methods for different bindings. For example I've bound the vim keys (hjkl) by scancode, and the layout keys ("S"tack, "F"ullscreen, "R"esize, etc) by symbol.

[1]: https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#keybindings

[jraph]

If someone ever does a survey, I'd be interested to read a blog post on this :-)

In my case I'm not sure what I prefer. When switching from AZERTY to QWERTY, I'm lost because the keybindings are not the same. Especially that CTRL+Z "becomes" CTRL+W which kills the current tab, and CTRL+W "becomes" CTRL+Q which kills the app.

OTOH, I don't usually switch layouts, and like that the configuration file / the UI matches the current layout.

I guess the conf could allow setting layout-specific keybindings. It complicates things quite a bit though.

[onli]

But that's easy. All software does something like CTRL-Z accordingly to the chosen layout. So the physical position of the switch to press on the keyboard changes accordingly to the layout, it changes when switching from qwerty to qwertz and again when it switches to dvorak.

I saw a few games where it wasn't that way, it was always treated as a bug.

Think of it from the user side: People are used to their shortcuts. They are used to press CTRL+Z where it is on their layout, as their keyboard keys will also be printed accordingly. Someone with a non-qwerty-layout may have never seen CTRL+Z leading to the physical key on the bottom left, for them it was always somewhere else. How would they know what to press, when the config says CTRL+Z, and they press CTRL+Z on their keyboard and nothing happens? How would someone who grew up with azerty know qwerty?

If you want to support "what people actually use", the keypresses have to be evaluated according to the actual keyboard layout used. I say this with absolute certainty, and as a multilingual developer who switched from qwertz to qwerty and had azerty in use as well for a time.

[woolion]

To be fair, the example of a game is a pretty poor one: it's the main case where the key positions are more important than their code --WASD->ZQSD in AZERTY for example; if the game still maps WASD, it's just unusable as direction input. The "press W" and nothing happens is annoying, but in that case it's the lesser of two evils. And the only good answer in that case is that you need to rebind your keys.

Of course the best is the ability to remap and to adapt such positional keybindings to (known) layouts. But it's a big 'localization' task to consider all niche layouts (Dvorak, Colemak, Azerty, Bépo, ...).

[05]

One more thing to think about: some layouts don't have Latin letters. So if you switch from English to Ukrainian, you'd lose all your keybindings with the approach requested in the ticket..

[mananaysiempre]

> That's what actually happens everywhere.

That’s emphatically not what happens everywhere. It might be what happens everywhere people use a single Latin layout, but if you use two layouts or more you definitely want things to stay on the same physical key regardless of any switching—your muscle memory is bound to hate you otherwise.

For example, I expect CUA cut to be Ctrl-X, but also Ctrl-Ч and Ctrl-ס. This is how it works on all graphical desktops I’ve used and also, with some work, in Vim. (Not in Kakoune, though, which is a substantial annoyance.)

[jraph]

> your muscle memory is bound to hate you otherwise.

Yes, exactly what happens when I switch from AZERTY to QWERTY. Everything is messed up.

Now my use of everywhere was abusive, I guess not everywhere. It can't be Z if Z is not on your keyboard.

[dasyatidprime]

As another non-QWERTY user, I usually want desktop keybindings (excluding games) to follow layout changes, because I'm remembering the function by the mnemonic. Most applications have this behavior on my existing FDO/Linux system. On the Windows machine I use sometimes, by contrast, it seems like holding Control effectively forces QWERTY, which has been an unending source of little pains. If I didn't already have the QWERTY keymap memorized and I had to figure out which keys were “actually” which to configure things, it would be a lot harder.

But then, I'm an X user still; I'd like to dip into Wayland, but a combination of fragmentation of protocols and the seeming relative “hardness” of the stack in terms of customizability have caused me to hesitate thus far. And maybe that Windows behavior also means that's what you want to mimic for a lot of other people?

[pxc]

> because I'm remembering the function by the mnemonic.

Perhaps this is also a frequency of use issue— if you're relying on the mnemonic rather than muscle memory, it sounds like a shortcut you don't use very often.

Or does muscle memory for you come in at a different layer somehow, where the mapping to key locations is basically automatic and instant but you do still consider key names as you navigate hotkeys?

[dasyatidprime]

The latter and definitely not the former, in my case. As far as I can tell from internal experience, my automatic procedural memory of where to reach for a character, function, or string transforms along with the layout I currently have it “configured” to use, in a rough mirror of how scancode↔keysym mapping can vary on the OS side. I have used a non-QWERTY layout full time for about 18 months now after being in mostly-QWERTY before, so my QWERTY memory has decayed somewhat, but I have past experience switching back and forth at a time scale of hours. If I want the eyedropper tool in GIMP, I reach for the O, and there isn't a separate conscious step of “okay, so that's O, right?”, it's just a single compound action. If it has to be the O in some other layout than the one I'm using, then I have to stop myself and consciously try to remember where it would be. The tools that I don't use as much I do also have to stop and remember, but that's very distinct in feel.

I wonder sometimes whether it's relevant that I'm a heavy Emacs user, in which short command gestures often include non-modified keys and are conceptually close to the physically more text-based M-x invocations. Maybe that type of experience (or what other types? Maybe CLI?) creates a different mental map of the distinction or lack thereof between text entry and shortcut keymaps. Emacs on Windows is especially awkward for me as a result of the QWERTY-on-Control behavior, because e.g. C-x C-t and C-x t now involve different positions for the T. Or maybe people who start out on non-QWERTY layouts on Windows specifically are pushed to remember shortcuts by their location early because the keysyms are illogical, and then they continue doing that, but people who stay on QWERTY all the time could go either way?

As others have mentioned, this also doesn't happen as much in gaming, where commands are often bound positionally, with WASD motion (GAST motion in my layout…) as a central example. There's still some expected-keysym mnemonic influence in which of multiple candidate keys to bind to a function as one moves away from the central motion cluster. The vi keys mentioned elsewhere are also very positional in nature, but I rarely use vi bindings, and when I do, the nav-cluster keys are usually an accepted alternative…

Gosh. With how much has wound up in this thread, I kind of wonder whether there's more serious ergonomics research on this difference in mental modeling now.

[pxc]

> Emacs on Windows is especially awkward for me as a result of the QWERTY-on-Control behavior, because e.g. C-x C-t and C-x t now involve different positions for the T.

Okay, now that sounds absolutely maddening, mixing layouts in a single sequence like that.

The way of working you describe makes sense to me. I think you might be on to something with the bare letter keys used in Emacs combinations priming users to think one way and the positional, WASD-like nature of vi bindings pointing users another way (when it comes to basic cursor navigation). I use Emacs as well, with a mix of Evil and traditional bindings...

For now I'm glad that I'm just using one keyboard layout! Hehehe.

[codetrotter]

> do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?

Personally, yes. If I am in Qwerty and I press the T key, I press the button where T is physically in Qwerty. If I am in Dvorak, I press the button where T is physically in Dvorak. Pressing the button where something is physically in Qwerty when I am in another layout would be very confusing, because effectively it would be that everything else is respecting the layout I am using except this one program that is still using the Qwerty positions of the keys.

[tmtvl]

People's brains just work differently. I don't remember "closing Awesome is Mod4 + Shift + the second key from the left on the bottom row", I remember "Mod4 + Shift + Q (for 'quit')" and my fingers know how to find 'Q'. If I change to Qwerty I'd have plenty of applications where the locations of keyboard shortcuts would change (like "Ctrl + C (for 'Copy')") and not having the keyboard shortcut for "close Awesome" change would be disorienting.

That said, maybe I'd have an easier time if it were possible to find a physical Dvorak keyboard, but alas: "worse is better".

OT: Wayfire is a really cool project and I admire how well it runs, it's real quality software.

[malermeister]

> do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?

As a colemak user, definitely. It's a super weird and confusing experience otherwise and this bug is a blocker for me checking out your (otherwise quite promising-looking) project.

[ammen99]

Wait, so you use both colemak and the normal qwerty layout and switch between them on the same keyboard?

As a vim user, I am hugely relying on muscle memory - which is why saying that bindings should vary between layouts seems really weird, as that would make muscle memory way less effective. Then again, that is my usage ..

[malermeister]

It's kind of hard to explain, but I think my brain doesn't go "letter -> key on keyboard", it goes "letter -> location in keyboard layout -> key on keyboard".

If the key on keyboard stays the same, even though the layout changes, it really messes with the way my brain maps from letters to muscle movements, idk if this makes sense.

[mato]

> Or do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?

It depends. As a counterpoint to the folks replying "yes", I have for years had Meta-[1..9] bound to "switch to desktop X". I also regularly use US English and Czech/Slovak keyboards.

In the X11 days, I never had to think about this, since for whatever reason (I believe technically a bug and/or X11-specific WM behaviour, but I've lost the reference...) Openbox would use the US English layout for its keybindings exclusively.

Since I switched to KDE Plasma on Wayland, I constantly get annoyed, every day, as I may have my keyboard set to SK, press what muscle memory says is Meta-[1] and instead I get a funky zoom, since that keystroke translates to Meta-[+] in the SK layout :-(

[taeric]

I definitely think of keys per my layout, not what is on the cap. I'd expect that to be the norm for touch typists.

[toastal]

I edit in Vim using Dvorak. I always expect `ciw` to “change inner word” regardless of layout. Most shortcuts are stored in my head in this way, not by physical key placement. That said, it doesn’t bother me that xmonad sets up my keys based on the default layout, so if I switch to another to type in a non-Latin script, the WMs shortcuts stay bound to my ‘normal’ keymap as the others are only used temporarily.

[skerit]

> the current system allows you to bind actions to a particular physical key

A particular physical key... on a QWERTY keyboard. But we don't have QWERTY keyboards, so having to bind something to KEY_Q when you want it to map to an A is stupid.

[hnuser123456]

Presumably, if one replaced their physical keyboard with one with a different layout, then change the layout to match in software, then the binding would still apply to the same "physical key location"?

[ammen99]

Bindings respond to a particular hardware key code. If you have a qwerty keyboard, when you press the key labeled as 'Q', the keyboard sends a `KEY_Q`. If you take a different physical device, `KEY_Q` will probably be reported for the key where `Q` is written on the new keyboard.

[dasyatidprime]

This is contrary to my understanding of mainstream keyboard technology. Scancodes, like what you're looking at with Linux input, mainly refer to physical positions relative to a “standard” keyboard, and the labels in the header file for the alphabetic section are based on assuming the keyboard is QWERTY. A keyboard that comes from the manufacturer with different-layout keycaps on it will still output physical-position-based scancodes, and KEY_Q in the header file is not normally generated by the key that the manufacturer shipped a cap labeled Q on; it's the key in the position that would output Q if it were a QWERTY keyboard. (Though there's a few edge cases around e.g. ANSI vs ISO layout.)

This idea is corroborated if you look in the USB HID Usage Tables that the Linux input event codes are based on. From https://usb.org/document-library/hid-usage-tables-14:

> Note: A general note on Usages and languages: Due to the variation of keyboards from language to language, it is not feasible to specify exact key mappings for every language. Where this list is not specific for a key function in a language, the closest equivalent key position should be used, so that a keyboard may be modified for a different language by simply printing different keycaps. One example is the Y key on a North American keyboard. In Germany this is typically Z. Rather than changing the keyboard firmware to put the Z Usage into that place in the descriptor list, the vendor should use the Y Usage on both the North American and German keyboards. This continues to be the existing practice in the industry, in order to minimize the number of changes to the electronics to accommodate other languages.

This can get somewhat more complicated when you get into keyboards with custom remapping firmware where they do actually shift the scancodes around, but that creates other potential issues, and users who are doing that basically just have to deal with their own integration tradeoffs. Similar considerations apply to keyboards with non-mainstream physical layouts.

[pxc]

'Q' isn't a scancode, though. The scancode is some weird number. 'Q' is a symbol, what the Linux keyboard tools project calls a 'keysym'.¹ The displeased users are expecting the symbolic-looking name to behave like a keysym in xmodmap or various WMs, and thus to be mapped according to layout. But in Wayfire, it's a short name for a scancode based on the mapping for QWERTY.

Imo it makes sense to support defining mappings according to both modes of reference, and even allow mixing them into a single config. Neither way of thinking seems inherently better or worse to me. Just depends on preference, intuition, and expectations.

--

1: https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/keymaps.5.html

[dasyatidprime]

That's the same thing I was getting at, yes. When I said “KEY_Q in the header file”, I was referring to the #define that attaches it to a number (edit to clarify: in linux/input-event-codes.h, specifically, which seems most likely to be the source of calling these KEY_* in the context of a Wayland compositor) and pointing out how it doesn't actually map to the conceptual Q, and that's why I mentioned scancodes specifically. Keysyms are indeed a separate layer, and I agree that users expecting to be able to configure on keysyms and being given the QWERTY-derived scancode mapping instead is confusing.