Closed Bug 280527 Opened 20 years ago Closed 19 years ago

gecko disregards US International keyboard input sequences for international characters

Categories

(Core :: Widget: Win32, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
Widget: Win32
Version:
1.7 Branch
Platform:
x86
Windows 2000
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED EXPIRED

People

(Reporter: kynn, Unassigned)

Details

(Keywords: intl) 

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

On Windows 2000 (as well as other versions of Windows), one of the most common
ways to input "international characters" (e.g. accented letters, tildes over n,
cedillas, etc.) is to set the keyboard to "United States International".  With
this setting, it is possible to enter, e.g. á by hitting ['] (single quote)
followed by [a].  This works fine on every application I've tried, including IE
6.0, but Firefox behaves as it does with the plain US keyboard (e.g. the
sequence described above results in the string 'a).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set the keyboard to United States International (Control Panel > Regional
Options > Input Locales > Change > Keyboard > Add > Input Language: English
(United States) + Keyboard Layout/IME: United States International).
2. Open up Microsoft Word and type [']+[a] to confirm that á is generated.
3. Open up Firefox and type the same sequence in any text field.

Actual Results:  
'a

Expected Results:  
á
reporter, what's the version of firefox you have this problem with? In addition,
you need to provide more details about the OS.  'other versions of Windows' is
ambiguous because Windows 9x/ME and Windows 2k/XP are totally different beasts.
Keywords: intl
We have a similar problem with our custom Tongan keyboard. Firefox is not 
playing nice as it should with keyboard events since we have no problems with 
most Windows applications. I've confirmed the behavior under Windows 2000 and 
XP with the latest Firefox 1.01.

Here's my post to the I19N newsgroup:

We have a custom Tongan keyboard built with Keyman 
(http://www.tavultesoft.com/). To produce the acute version of the vowels the 
users press the control key plus the vowel. For example ctrl+a = ив.

The alt+vowel keys produce a macron (иб) and work fine with FireFox - however 
the ctrl+vowel keys produce nothing. It looks like the ctrl key events are 
being eaten by FireFox.

Our keyboard works in almost any Windows application you can name Notepad, 
WordPad, Word, and, should I say it... Internet Explorer.

We've contacted Tavultesoft and they say that it is a problem with the 
application (Firefox 1.01).

Tavultesoft mentioned that Microsoft has published guidlines on how to make MS 
applications "keyboard friendly".

I can provide a keman keboard exe to install and test the ctrl-a problem. I can 
also implement a dead key scenario such as the first person reported.

This is a serious bug for international users - we have to put on hold our XUL 
development project until this is resolved.
Can anybody see if this problem is a regression (that is, it used to work but
doesn't work any more)? 

 jhargraveiii and Kynn, do you have the same problem with mozilla suite (1.7.x,
1.8beta1 and 1.8beta2)? It'd be also nice if you can test this with the latest
trunk nightly build.
WFM with firefox 1.0 on Windows 2k(default system locale : Korean). I tried both
'English (US) /w US International'and 'Portugese(Brazil) /w US International' 

á ç ö ü í ù ò 


I have confirmed the bug with Mozilla 1.7.5 and Firefox 1.01. I'll get the 
latest code from CVS and try to reproduce the bug. Thanks for the quick action!




I should add that we have seen the same bug in some Windows applications.  
Trados TagEditor (www.trados.com) and Atril's DVX for example. These are 
translation tools. 

It must depend on how the underlying implementation handles keyboard events 
since Notepad, Wordpad, Word, OpenOffice and Internet Explorer function as 
expected.
US International keyboard just works fine for me. (I have no problem letters
with  diacritics with deadkey sequences). For Tavulte custom keyboard issue,
please file a new bug and put me and Masauki on Cc. 

A possible difference between me and others who have this problem is that I have
installed keyboards for CJK and Thai, Hindi and Tamil. Either CJK or
Thai/Hindi/Tamil may make it Mozilla work well with US International. Another
possibility is that the complex script support that is installed for any of
complex scripts (Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Bengali, etc) has that effect. Some Windows
APIs (e.g. string measuring and drawing APIs) get enhanced (get new
capabilities) 'automagically' when complex script support (or CJK support) is
added. MS IE and some applications invokes lower level APIs directly (e.g.
Uniscribe) so that they work regardless of the presence of complex script support.  
(In reply to comment #6)
> I'll get the latest code from CVS and try to reproduce the bug. Thanks for the
quick action!
Or just download a trunk build from:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/
>>Or just download a trunk build from:
>>http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the latest trunk build and it appears that 
things have gotten worse. Not only do the ctrl-a key strokes not work (as 
before), but now the alt-a does not work either. Typing these sequences 
produces nothing (no visible output).

I can put together both a Microsoft and Keyman keyboard to exercise the bug. 
Would you like me to create a new bug and attach these keyboards?
Forgot to add that I tested both a HTML textarea and a XUL textbox - but I 
assume both of these use the same underlying code.
I cannot reproduce with Firefox1.0 and 2005030506/WinXP-ja...
The US International keyboard layout works fine.
(In reply to comment #11)

> Thanks for the link. I downloaded the latest trunk build and it appears that 
> things have gotten worse. Not only do the ctrl-a key strokes not work (as 

Please, see comment #9 and see if things get better if you install any of
complex script support packages (just pick whatever you want, Hindi, Thai, or
Tamil or whatever). If it doesn't work, check if installing one of CJK (Chinese,
Japanese, Korean) makes any difference. Note that they all come with any
language version of Win 2k or Win XP installation CD so that you don't have to
download anything. 

I have all languages installed (Tamil, Hindi, CJK etc.) on both my XP and 
WIndows 2000 machines. These languages work fine - as far as I can tell. 

Perhaps the deadkey issue has been fixed? But any keystrokes that include the 
ctrl or alt keys will not work as expected.

I'll put together two sample keyboards one keyman and one Microsoft that will 
show the bug. This will have to wait till Monday as I don't have access to 
Keyman developer at home.


(In reply to comment #15)

Thanks for testing, but I wanted you to conduct more controlled experiments
because you didn't have them installed and it's easier to add them one by one
checking if it makes any difference with US international and your keyman keyboards.
 
> I have all languages installed (Tamil, Hindi, CJK etc.) on both my XP and 
> WIndows 2000 machines. These languages work fine - as far as I can tell. 

Gee, we're aware that those keyboards/IMEs work fine. The question was whether
there is any difference *before and after* installing them in terms of dead key
handling and your keyman keyboard handling.

> Perhaps the deadkey issue has been fixed? But any keystrokes that include the 
> ctrl or alt keys will not work as expected.

The question is still open as to whether installing CJK or complex script
support solved the dead key issue on US int'l. If it's the case, we have to
document that. 

Anyway, your problem with ctrl/alt key combination should be a separate bug.
Would you please file a new bug? 
 
> I'll put together two sample keyboards one keyman and one Microsoft that will 
> show the bug. This will have to wait till Monday as I don't have access to 
> Keyman developer at home.
 
I downloaded Keyman  and installed it on Win2k, but I can't find any trace of it
having been installed on my desktop and start-menu. Where has it gone?  


see new Bug 285049. I will try the controlled testing as you described.

Keyman should appear on your bottom taskbar as a grey "key" with a "k" on it. 
You right click to enable the installed keyboard (though you may not have any 
keyboards installed).

I will attach test keyboards to the new bug above.
Assignee: firefox → win32
Component: General → Widget: Win32
Product: Firefox → Core
QA Contact: general → ian
Summary: Firefox disregards US International keyboard input sequences for international characters → gecko disregards US International keyboard input sequences for international characters
Version: unspecified → 1.7 Branch
make that bug 285052 ...
This works for me on 2005031605 (win2k) - while I don't _want_ it to work, and
it shouldn't work, as I specifically set a plain US keyboard layout.
Is it possible mozilla is reversing something somewhere?
Hrm, disregard that message. It magically seems to have fixed itself again. o.O
This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 19 years ago
Resolution: --- → EXPIRED
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