Keyboard layout selection dialog should be improved for better usability (faster layout selection)

[N0rbert]

Currently dropdown lists (combobox select menus) in Choose a Layout window does not react on keypresses.

Expected behaviour

User is able to select needed list items by clicking corresponding button on keyboard to scroll the list to the needed first letter.

Actual behaviour

User have to use mouse or keyboard to select needed list item. This process is long and time-consuming.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Open mate-keyboard-preferences
2. Switch to Layouts tab
3. Click Add

   • On the By country tab

     • set focus on Country and try to choose Russian Federation from it by pressing r one or several times
     • set focus on Variants and try to choose Russian from it by pressing r one or several times

   • On the By language tab

     • set focus on Language and try to choose Russian from it by pressing r one or several times
     • set focus on Variants and try to choose Russian from it by pressing r one or several times

MATE general version

1.22.1

Package version

1.22.1-0ubuntu2.1

Linux Distribution

Ubuntu 19.10 (development version) and previous versions.

Link to downstream report of your Distribution

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mate-control-center/+bug/1837083

[N0rbert]

So the code uses GtkComboBoxes, but the problem is really caused by GTK. The bug there has 10 years history and not yet fixed.

So the premise of current bug here should be changed to demand UI redesign to make it more-userfriendly.

[N0rbert]

I did some research and have to say the following.

As for me - the most usable and adequate keyboard layout selection dialog was presented in GNOME 2.14.3 (as shipped with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Dapper Drake).
You can see on screencast below how fast is it:

It is based on GtkTreeView component (see gnome-keyboard-properties.glade for it and gnome-keyboard-properties-xkblt.c).

The last version with this dialog is in GNOME 2.18.

Then it was replaced with current version with two selection lists. For example Ubuntu 7.10 (with GNOME 2.20.1) and Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (with GNOME 2.22.3) has this type of dialog.
These selection lists have never allow language selection by typing first letter(s). So it takes long time to find language and variant of layout.

So I hope that we can change it back to TreeView as it was before.

[N0rbert]

Still happens on latest Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS beta.