592649 - Ctrl-space shortcut for TabCandy conflicts with input method toggle

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 592183

(Firefox Graveyard :: Panorama, defect, P2)

Description

[Bruce Rusk]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b4) Gecko/20100818 Firefox/4.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b4) Gecko/20100818 Firefox/4.0b4

This is the windows equivalent of Bug #587505 on MacOS. The ctrl-space key combination to activate TabCandy is already used in Windows as the default shortcut for toggling IMEs (input methods), for example switching between a Chinese-language input method and English. Depending on which input methods the user has previously started in the session, hitting ctrl-space in Firefox will either invoke TabCandy or switch input methods. This makes for a user experience that is unpredictable, inconsistent (both internally and compared to other applications), and not configurable.

In my limited testing, if a non-English IME has been invoked and the focus is in a textbox, ctrl-tab toggles input methods; if focus is not in a textbox nothing happens. If no IME has been invoked ctrl-space opens TabCandy.

At the very least, the keyboard shortcut should be easily changed by the user (i.e., in an Options menu, NOT via about:config). But since much of the world (most of Asia and the Middle East, at least) use such non-Roman input methods (perhaps Cyrillic ones as well?), ideally the default shortcut should be changed or there will be many frustrated users.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enable a non-English IME (e.g. Traditional Chinese)
2. Open Firefox
3. Hit ctrl-space
Actual Results:  
Either IME is toggled (textbox) or nothing happens

Expected Results:  
????

Comment 1

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

Breaking IME is bad. We either need a different shortcut, or more smarts here.

Comment 3

[Kevin Hanes]

Canceling blocking, as this is a dupe.