Bug 474936

Summary:	Switching keyboard lay-out has no effect in Steam games
Product:	[I don't know] kde	Reporter:	kravanjunk
Component:	general	Assignee:	Unassigned bugs mailing-list <unassigned-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED DOWNSTREAM
Severity:	minor	CC:	nate
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description kravanjunk 2023-09-27 13:37:13 UTC

I generally use the Belgian (azerty) keyboard lay-out. For some games I switch the lay-out to US (qwerty) with a short-cut but the game does not recognize the switch and continues to use the azerty lay-out UNLESS I open the keyboard lay-out section and move the US qwerty lay-out above the Belgian azerty one and hit apply.
Then the game will start recognizing my inputs in qwerty.
I've always used the global switching policy and that didn't work, other switching policies also had no effect.


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Start a game in Steam (I tested Batman: Arkham Asylum and Origins)
2. Test out the keyboard to confirm it's azerty/qwerty
3. Use the shortcut to change to qwerty/azerty
4. Notice there's no difference
5. Alt-tab and change the order of the keyboard lay-outs in keyboard system settings
6. Go back into the game and notice the lay-out listed at the top in keyboard systeml settings is now being recognized by the game

EXPECTED RESULT
The expected result would be that if I change the keyboard lay-out by using the shortcut and the OSD shows my lay-out has switched that the game now uses the new keyboard lay-out.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.8
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.110.0
Qt Version: 5.15.10
Unsure if this matters but I'm using Wayland.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I think a possible solution could be that changing the lay-out by shortcut also re-arranges the keyboard lay-out order, but I'm not a developer.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2023-09-28 19:26:03 UTC

This is unfortunately caused by a bug in either the game, or in Steam, for not reading the current keyboard layout properly. To find out, please try to reproduce the bug in Steam itself. If you can, it's a bug in Steam. If not, it's a bug in the game. That'll determine to whom you should report the bug. :)

Comment 2 kravanjunk 2023-09-28 20:52:15 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> This is unfortunately caused by a bug in either the game, or in Steam, for
> not reading the current keyboard layout properly. To find out, please try to
> reproduce the bug in Steam itself. If you can, it's a bug in Steam. If not,
> it's a bug in the game. That'll determine to whom you should report the bug.
> :)

I tried to find out but can't really determine much since I currently don't know of a game where I can test text input vs control input.
Steam doesn't really have any "keyboard functions" for me to test, it switches text input correctly.

I tried El Shaddai which didn't change it's inputs at all no matter what I tried (0 effect).
I tried the demo of Ato which showed the very same behaviour as the Batman games (controls depend on which lay-out is at the top of the list).

It doesn't seem to be a Steam issue because it's not consistent across different games.

I found a different bug report that also seems to stem from whether a lay-out is at the top of the list or not
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=425357

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2023-09-29 17:46:57 UTC

You could test in a text field in the Steam client. But it does sound like this is a bug in those specific games.