Bug#319605: gnome-keyboard-applet: displays same indicator for different layouts

[Matijs van Zuijlen]

Package: gnome-applets
Version: 2.10.1-5
Severity: normal

The Keyboard Indicator applet seems to use the shortDescription field in
/etc/X11/xkb/rules/xfree86.xml as its indicator. This is a problem, since
these short descriptions are not unique.

I like to alternate between US English (which I use most of the time), and
US English w/deadkeys (when I need to type some accented characters). Since
my upgrade to the x.org packages there is actually a short description for
these (before, the Indicator just showed the name (like, us_intl), but it's
USA for both of them. Not very useful.

For a similar problem with greek keyboards, see:
http://lists.hellug.gr/pipermail/i18ngr/2005-January/002400.html

I currently see the following possible solutions:

- Make xfree86.xml (or rather, xorg.xml) contain unique short descriptions
  for every keyboard layout and variant (Doesn't seem likely, since at
  least the English short descriptions seem to standardize on three-letter
  abbreviations).
- Add some disambiguation in the indicator if necessary given the user's
  configuration. These could be either numbers (not so nice), or the name
  field, like so: USA (us); USA (en_US); USA (us_intl), or, when using the
  intl variant of the us layout (I don't know why there are two of them):
  USA (intl).
- Allow the user to set the display string (This would be rather awkward, I
  suppose).

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: powerpc (ppc)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.11-powerpc
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages gnome-applets depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]     1.4.52         Debian configuration management sy
ii  gnome-applets-data        2.10.1-5       Various applets for GNOME 2 panel 
ii  gnome-icon-theme          2.10.1-2       GNOME Desktop icon theme
ii  gnome-panel               2.10.2-1       launcher and docking facility for 
ii  gstreamer0.8-alsa [gstrea 0.8.8-3        ALSA plugin for GStreamer
ii  gstreamer0.8-artsd [gstre 0.8.8-3        aRtsd plugin for GStreamer
ii  gstreamer0.8-esd [gstream 0.8.8-3        Enlightened Sound Daemon plugin fo
ii  gstreamer0.8-oss [gstream 0.8.8-3        OSS plugin for GStreamer
ii  libapm1                   3.2.2-3        Library for interacting with APM d
ii  libart-2.0-2              2.3.17-1       Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0               1.10.1-2       The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0              2.10.0-1       Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0            2.10.0-1       The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                     2.3.2.ds1-22   GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgail-common            1.8.4-1        GNOME Accessibility Implementation
ii  libgail17                 1.8.4-1        GNOME Accessibility Implementation
ii  libgconf2-4               2.10.1-1       GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0               1:2.5.1-2      library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.6.5-1        The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0               2.10.1-1       The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0         2.10.2-2       A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0              2.10.1-1       The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0            2.10.1-5       The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.8-3        Various GStreamer libraries and li
ii  libgstreamer0.8-0         0.8.10-2       Core GStreamer libraries, plugins,
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.6.8-1        The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libgtop2-5                2.10.2-1       Libraries for gtop system monitori
ii  libgucharmap4             1:1.4.3-2      Unicode browser widget library (sh
ii  libice6                   6.8.2.dfsg.1-4 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2                 1:2.12.2-1     libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpanel-applet2-0        2.10.2-1       library for GNOME 2 panel applets
ii  libpango1.0-0             1.8.1-1        Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                  1.7-5          lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsm6                    6.8.2.dfsg.1-4 X Window System Session Management
ii  libwnck16                 2.10.2-1       Window Navigator Construction Kit 
ii  libx11-6                  6.8.2.dfsg.1-4 X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxklavier10             2.0-0.2        X Keyboard Extension high-level AP
ii  libxml2                   2.6.20-1       GNOME XML library
ii  xlibs                     6.8.2.dfsg.1-4 X Window System client libraries m
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.3-1      compression library - runtime

Versions of packages gnome-applets recommends:
ii  gnome-media                  2.10.2-0.2  The GNOME Media Utilities
ii  gnome-netstatus-applet       2.10.0-2    Network status applet for GNOME 2
ii  gnome-system-monitor         2.10.1-2    Process viewer and system resource
ii  imagemagick                  6:6.2.3.4-1 Image manipulation programs

-- debconf information excluded