618352 - Shift and Fn keys not working on HTC Desire Z with hardware keyboard

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Tero Koskinen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100810 Firefox/3.6.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Linux armv7l; rv:2. 0b8pre) Gecko/20101210 Firefox/4.0b8pre Fennec/4.0b3pre

On HTC Desire Z Shift and Fn keys are not working when the hardware keyboard is used.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open hardware keyboard
2. Start Fennec
3. Open a new tab
4. Click on the address bar and try to type "ABOUT:CONFIG" using the hardware keyboard. Use Fn + . to get : character and Shift + letter to get uppercase character.


Actual Results:  
Text "about.config" is entered.

Expected Results:  
Text "ABOUT:CONFIG" is entered.


It does not matter do you type Fn and . at the same time or Fn first and then .

Shift and Fn work as expected if you first close the hardware keyboard and start typing with the virtual keyboard:
1. Close hardware keyboard
2. Tap on the address bar
3. Press Shift from the virtual keyboard
4. Press A from the virtual keyboard
5. Open the hardware keyboard (virtual keyboard disappears automatically)
6. Type BOUT:CONFIG normally. Shift and Fn work as expected!

The HTC Desire Z is the scandinavian (Finnish) model with åäö keys and Android 2.2.

Comment 1

[Sascha Grage]

confirmed with German HTC Desire Z, Android 2.2

Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Linux armv71; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101210 
Firefox/4.0b8pre Fennec/4.0b3pre

Comment 2

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

this is working for me on the droid 2

Comment 3

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

I can't reproduce this on a T-Mobile G2, which is a US version of the Desire Z.  Unlike the Desire Z, the G2 does not have the HTC Sense custom UI.  Possibly related to bug 618252, which involves another Sense device (HTC Incredible).

Comment 4

[Thomas Schwecherl]

Also confirming with German HTC Desire Z (Android 2.2 + Firefox 4.0b2): FN + keys and SHIFT + keys don't work with hardware keyboard.

Comment 5

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

is anyone who is seeing this in Mountain View this week?

Comment 6

[Tero Koskinen]

Attachment: GeckoApp log from adb logcat.

I did some debugging with the latest sources, here is a log snippet. It seems that Java code at least sees the Fn and Shift presses.

Comment 7

[Tero Koskinen]

Attachment: Logging.

Here are my used logging statements. I tried turn on also logging in nsWindow.cpp, but I couldn't figure out how to enable it.

Comment 8

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

I wonder if the patch in bug 619519 will fix this...

Comment 9

[Tero Koskinen]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I wonder if the patch in bug 619519 will fix this...

Nope, it didn't fix this. Shift and Fn keys are still ignored.

However, I noticed that if I press Home and restart Fennec from the application list, the Shift and Fn keys are working:
0. Open hardware keyboard
1. Start Fennec
2. Click on the address bar
3. Try to type something (Shift and Fn not working)
4. Press Home button to get the default view
5. Start Fennec again (from the application list or from the recent list)
6. Continue typing without touching the screen, Shift and Fn work as expected

Shift and Fn stop working again, if I let the device go idle and the screen goes blank.

This sounds like some platform related issue, but on the other hand, Shift and Fn keys are working fine in other apps (the default browser on the device, ConnectBot from Android Market, etc.).

Comment 10

[:gerard-majax]

Confirmed with HTC Desire Z, with latest Firefox Mobile available on the market.

Comment 11

[:gerard-majax]

Doesn't work either with 4.0b4 build of today.

Comment 12

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

This change fixes some possibly similar issues in the "connectbot" SSH app:

http://code.google.com/p/connectbot/issues/detail?id=396

https://github.com/iiuusit/connectbot/commit/fcf930ee87dfef5ad1819a3dfb601b14f06aec34

...but it looks like that bug was limited only to certain key combinations, rather than all shift/fn combos.  It also relies on setting a pref to enable the quirks for this specific device.  (Thanks to @bcpk on Twitter for the link.)

Comment 14

[Vladimir Rutsky]

Bug confirmed with 4.0b3 from Market on Russian HTC Desire Z. Also can confirm that restarting procedure described by Tero Koskinen in comment #9 temporary helps.

Comment 15

[Tero Koskinen]

Attachment: Work-around for Fn and Shift keys, long press is disabled as a side-effect

I noticed that the attached patch allows Fn and Shift keys to work on Desire Z. With the patch, upper case and special characters are correctly entered.

However, as a side-effect, long pressing keys no longer works (instead, the pressed key is repeated). There might be some other unwanted behaviour with the patch, I did only some light testing.

Note: I am not familiar with Android development, attached patch was just a lucky guess (after I did some debugging with jdb).

Comment 16

[Michael Wu [:mwu]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> Created attachment 502815 [details] [diff] [review]
> Work-around for Fn and Shift keys, long press is disabled as a side-effect
> 
Some ideas to try:

Does this continue to work if you make it:

if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_MENU)
return super.onKeyPreIme(keyCode, event);

or


if (mIMEState != IME_STATE_DISABLED || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_MENU)
return false;

Comment 17

[Tero Koskinen]

Attachment: Work-around for Fn and Shift keys, version 2

> Does this continue to work if you make it:
>
> if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_MENU)
>     return super.onKeyPreIme(keyCode, event);

This allowed long press to work and fixed also the Shift and Fn keys. Thanks!
Patch attached.

> or
> 
> if (mIMEState != IME_STATE_DISABLED || keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK ||
>   keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_MENU)
>     return false;

With this, Shift and Fn keys didn't work.

Comment 18

[Michael Wu [:mwu]]

Attachment: Handle all key events in onKeyPreIme when possible

Tero, can you check this patch and make sure it works for you? This basically the same patch, except we use isSystem() to check for back and menu and all other keys that the system should be responsible for handling. I had to sit and think for a while about whether getting rid of the mIMEState check is correct. Fairly convinced that it is now.

Comment 19

[Tero Koskinen]

Comment on attachment 506599 [details] [diff] [review]
Handle all key events in onKeyPreIme when possible

The patch fixes the Shift and Fn keys. Long-press also works as expected. (This comment is written using the latest m-c + m-b + the patch on my Desire Z.)

For some reason (lacking some permission bits?), I couldn't give feedback+.

Comment 20

[:gerard-majax]

Not yet commited ?

Comment 21

[Brian Crowder]

Comment on attachment 506599 [details] [diff] [review]
Handle all key events in onKeyPreIme when possible

Might this fix bug 624334?

Comment 22

[Michael Wu [:mwu]]

(In reply to comment #21)
> Comment on attachment 506599 [details] [diff] [review]
> Handle all key events in onKeyPreIme when possible
> 
> Might this fix bug 624334?

I wouldn't count on it, but I guess it's worth checking after this patch lands.

Comment 23

[Michael Wu [:mwu]]

Attachment: hg patch ready patch

Comment 24

[(no longer active)]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f1c061dec937

Comment 26

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Verified using G2/Desire Z Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Linux armv7l; rv:2.0b13pre)
Gecko/20110315 Firefox/4.0b13pre Fennec/4.0b6pre ID:20110315035936