Bug 506001 - Change keyboard layout OSD to show a list of all layouts, and the active layout's position in that list
Summary: Change keyboard layout OSD to show a list of all layouts, and the active layo...
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Keyboard Layout widget (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.3.5
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords: usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-06-22 20:06 UTC by ratijas
Modified: 2025-11-02 19:41 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

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Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
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Description ratijas 2025-06-22 20:06:33 UTC
SUMMARY

Situation: when switching keyboard layouts (like Meta+Space) an OSD pops up showing only the current/activated keyboard layout.

Problem: The OSD doesn't show how many layouts are there, or at least what's the next one gonna be if you keep pressing Space (cycling through the list).  oh, btw there is no such thing as a single shortcut to switch between last two and cycle on press and hold modifier (unlike Alt+Tab) but that's a different although an adjacent issue.

Why is this problematic?
- User might wanna see what they've just switched from — in case there is a "Switch to previous layout" shortcut.
- User might wanna know what's the next layout — how many more times to press the shortcut.
- Finally, a bug happened to me such that only one layout was in the cycle list (normally there should be two), so pressing the shortcut only showed me the current layout, leading me to a false conclusion that Plasma and OSD were graphically frozen — would've been nicer to see that there was in fact only one layout, or maybe two identical US ones idk.

Prior Art: see keyboard layout switchers on
- Microsoft Windows: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PgcGtIalB40
- Mac OS X / iOS / iPad OS with a physical keyboard: https://youtu.be/712e_rOiKX4?t=27
- GNOME: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-layouts.html.en

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Cycle through keyboard layouts using a shortcut

OBSERVED RESULT
Currently/newly active keyboard layout is displayed in the OSD.

EXPECTED RESULT
A list of all keyboard layouts (or at least a couple of them before and after the current one) should be displayed for the reasons described above.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.15.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1
Kernel Version: 6.15.2-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

You guys absolutely broke backward compatibility with widget's «Report a Bug…» button by renaming all the bugzilla Components without any sort of aliases/redirection.