[xbian-config] Options for keyboard layout and locale

[Yhdiste]

Would it be possible to add options for changing keyboard layout and locale in the xbian-config? I am sure a lot people would welcome these features in it.

[CurlyMoo]

I am sure a lot people would welcome these features in it.

Can you be a bit more elaborate on this statement?

[muddermanden]

If I may contribute to this issue as I am a danish user using danish keyboard layout and danish characters such as æøåÆØÅ. The way i resolved this issue was by entering the following commands and selecting keyboard model and layout and locale settings.

sudo su
apt-get update
apt-get install console-setup
dpkg-reconfigure console-setup
apt-get install keyboard-configuration
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
apt-get upgrade
reboot

Would it be possible to install console-setup and keyboard-configuration as default, and then be able to access those from within the xbian-config menu system?

[CurlyMoo]

Is there no other way to get XBMC recognize UTF-8 characters?

[muddermanden]

Not that I know of but I am not an expert on linux systems yet. But as far as I could see there is no settings in XBMC that allowed me to use UTF-8 chars, all I could do to solve it was doing as i described in my post above.

[CurlyMoo]

What is the output of locale?

[muddermanden]

On my system it is now

LANG=da_DK.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=C
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_PAPER="C"
LC_NAME="C"
LC_ADDRESS="C"
LC_TELEPHONE="C"
LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
LC_ALL=C

[CurlyMoo]

Just to be prepared, the Alpha 5 update will overwrite the locale settings to C.UTF-8 we will check into the keyboard layout in future releases.

[muddermanden]

Okay, I will just redo the configuration after the update then, thanks for the warning. Sounds good that you will look into it later. As Yhdiste said in the OP, a lot of people would welcome these features. I am sorry that I can not participate and do it my self, but unfortunately I lack the skills ;) Btw. it is a great work you are doing. Thanks again!

[CurlyMoo]

Skills can always be learned, so please don't underestimate yourself...

[muddermanden]

I know and I am trying to learn. I know how to do programming in different languages and I am studying IT at the University, but the hardest part here is to find out how to get started in a project like this ;)

[CurlyMoo]

That the attitude we're looking for. If you need help just ask!

[CurlyMoo]

Also, xbian-config-bash is fully modular so it's not that difficult to hop in i think. Just start looking at the source of the xbianpass or timezone modules.

[muddermanden]

Cool... Then I will start by taking a look at that 😄

[CurlyMoo]

Please notice that the (latest) source can the found in our seperate xbian-config-bash repo and not in our main xbian repo.
https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-config-bash

[CurlyMoo]

Can you guys try to change the locale inside xbmc found in /home/xbian/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml:

    <locale>
        <audiolanguage>original</audiolanguage>
        <charset>DEFAULT</charset>
        <country>USA (24h)</country>
        <language>english</language>
        <subtitlelanguage>original</subtitlelanguage>
        <timezone>America/New_York</timezone>
        <timezonecountry>United States</timezonecountry>
    </locale>

[muddermanden]

Can you guys try to change the locale inside xbmc found in /home/xbian/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml

I have changed it to the following,

<locale>
    <audiolanguage>original</audiolanguage>
    <charset>da_DK.UTF-8</charset>
    <country>USA (24h)</country>
    <language>danish</language>
    <subtitlelanguage>original</subtitlelanguage>
    <timezone>Denmark/Copenhagen</timezone>
    <timezonecountry>Denmark</timezonecountry>
</locale>

but I am not sure what values to put in and what to look for afterwards since I have already made set those settings system wide like I have described above.

[CurlyMoo]

Can you experiment a bit with a clean install?

[muddermanden]

I have tried with a clean install and changed the localesettings in the guisettings.xml file (from within XBMC and directly in the file), and I am still unable to use the characters æøåÆØÅ.

edit: besides that, it would only have effect within XBMC, which makes it quite hard once you exit XBMC to enter the console. I really have to concentrate while typing in commands since the keyboard layout is different.

[CurlyMoo]

Thanks, then the XBMC setting is not enough.

[muddermanden]

Well thank you for looking into it 😄 The solution I posted above worked really well both inside and outside of XBMC, so if a language/keyboard/locale module could be created then it would be awesome. Besides that, I would like to participate in the project and create danish language files, how do I get started doing so?

[CurlyMoo]

If you check https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-config-bash then you see a lang folder. Also, every module has such a folder. Inside these folders are the language files for each module. You can create dk ones for each of them. The last file you need to edit is https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-config-bash/blob/master/functions/language. There pretty self explanable. Remember there is a character limit for _NAME of 20 chars and of _DESC of 30 chars.

So awaiting your pull requests.

Also, i was hoping you were going to create this module 😃

[muddermanden]

Yes, I figured that out by looking at the modules, etc. But do I fork the project and create the lang files in my own repo and push them once they are ready? (this is my first time collaborating on a project)

[CurlyMoo]

Yes, but just experiment a bit, i will guide you through the pull request when ready. Just do them in steps.

[muddermanden]

I can see that some of the _DESC are longer than 30 chars. Are you sure 30 is the limitation? e.g. _ITEMSYSTEMDESC="e.g. Resize SD, Overclocking, Hostname" is 38 chars.

[CurlyMoo]

It always depends on the combination of the _NAME and the corresponding _DESC.

The _ITEMSYSTEMNAME is 6 char and the _ITEMSYSTEMDESC is 38 char. Together they are 44 char. The combined characters can never be more then 50. But also, the longest _NAME in the this language file is 12 char. and the longest _DESC is 38 char (Connectivity). So they are combined 50 char. long. It's always about relationships between the first column as in _NAME and the second column as in _DESC.

So would you manage to make the first column 5 char. wide, then the second column can be 45 char. wide. A general working rule was the 20 - 30 rule.

[CurlyMoo]

I'm not going to add new features to xbian-config, just making sure the current ones will work bugfree.

[CurlyMoo]

@muddermanden, does just (only) setting the locale to a different value work

[LStranger]

Thank you very much. As you requested, I'll add my problem as a comment here.

I cannot have any characters entered from keyboard in any input window of XBMC but english ones despite of any setup I've already done.
I'm using fresh install with update to frodo-12.1 from the page http://xbian.org/2013/03/xbmc-frodo-12-1-more/
When system is started I open an input window in XBMC and only english layout is available - neither pressing switch key nor group key doesn't change anything. OK, trying exit XBMC - I get to console, login... I see, both group key and switch key work just fine! Now I enter 'sudo service xbmc restart' and... neither switch key nor group key works again! :(
Since XBMC works fine with keyboard on my desktop, it is your version of XBMC that does ignore keyboard switching. Fix it, please, my relatives doesn't need partially working system but fully working. For example, they cannot use youtube plugin without possibility to switch keyboard layout - there is no interest for them to use english-only search, they want our local videos but those cannot be found with english transliteration unfortunately and that renders youtube plugin almost unusable for them. The same is valid for custom labels everywhere - they want them localized since they don't know English.
And yes, no locale problems was found in XBMC itself - skin and plugins are localized just fine. Only keyboard switching is missed for now.
Thank you in advance and I hope to get it fixed soon.

[LStranger]

And I don't want you to add any new features into xbian-config, I can run dpkg-reconfigure by hands. I just want XBMC to accept what keyboard-configuration package have already done for console.
Thank you very much!

[CurlyMoo]

If you let me know how to do that...

[LStranger]

Well, if XBMC is ran in console then it should already inherit all setup which was done for the console. When it's ran under XOrg it gets setup of XOrg. I don't know exactly how XBMC is started in Xbian, unfortunately. So I have no idea how to apply keyboard setup to it. From what I see, it either starts from abstract interface (so console setup wasn't applied) or it resets keyboard layout to english-only. It's all I could suppose, I'm sorry.

[CurlyMoo]

Yes, it is directly ran from the console.

[LStranger]

If that is the case then I think there is some code which resets keyboard layout somewhere and that code should be disabled to fix the issue. I cannot tell you more because I haven't explored the code of XBMC so much. I'm sorry.

[LStranger]

I hoped the fix xbmc/xbmc#2435 would fix the problematic keyboard layout inheritance too but unfortunately it is still in place. I don't know if I should ask xbmc people about the issue or not.

[mk01]

as far as I'm aware this is no more issue.

[LStranger]

Wait, how can it be "no more issue"? Is it fixed in XBMC? Is it fixed in XBian repository too? I still wait for it to be fixed, I have Raspberry Pi laying on the table packed instead of used due to this issue, RPi is a piece of crap for those who has no usage for US keyboard layout (and my relatives are such people). Please, tell me it is fixed somehow. Or should I install full XOrg on RPi and run XBMC over it? Will it give me the same performance then?

[mk01]

@LStranger, sorry, as I spotted your name I by mistake took it as the discussion about hot plug keyboard - I remember your name from. ;)

[CurlyMoo]

Should be fixed:
xbianonpi/xbian-config-bash@b96eac7

And i'm gone from this issue

[LStranger]

@CurlyMoo, thank you very much for the comment, but mentioned config issue is about localization and as I've already mentioned above, I have zero localization issues - everything is localized just perfectly. The problem lies in another - keyboard layout switching does not work at all, and you know, keyboard layouts are not dependent on locales, it is another thing. I'm sorry.

[LStranger]

@mk01, no problem, everyone can make mistakes (myself included, of course). :)
I've opened a thread on XBMC forum back then but still got no good answer.

[LStranger]

So this is how bugs are handled now - just closing the issue? Well, Raspberry Pi costs not too much so just throw it into trash may be solution too. Thank you very much for letting me know that Xbian is not proper OS for RPi, I'll think over what else to do.

[LStranger]

Well, I'll try yet some newer version of XBian, may be it is really fixed somehow.

[mk01]

@LStranger

it is still as it was. part of OS works, but XBMC is and will be somehow standalone component (due to missing X accel) so until someone doesn't include this directly in XBMC, we can't do much - beside programming it itself.

[LStranger]

I see. Seems there is no another solution but bug and poke XBMC people until they fix it. Thank you.