Xfce Forum

alsh

Member

Registered: 2011-12-10

Posts: 2

XScreenSaver and keyboard layout

Hello,
is there a way to see the input language in the login/password prompt of XScreenSaver?

It's driving me nuts, i have 3 keyboard layouts installed and every time i need to unlock the screen i'm forced to blindly switch the language (via the keyboard shortcut) and reenter the password, hoping that i've chosen the correct keyboard layout and made no mistakes in the password itself.

Any suggestions? Maybe it's possible to change XScreenSaver for something else (with support of keyboard layout display) ?

Thanks for your help.

I'm using xfce4.8 on Fedora 15 (2.6.41.4-1.fc15.x86_64)

Last edited by alsh (2012-03-09 17:26:25)

olegt

Member

Registered: 2012-04-13

Posts: 1

Re: XScreenSaver and keyboard layout

Hello,
I had the same problem - 3 keyboard layouts, XFCE, Xscreensaver.
I'm using Fedora 16 with XFCE.
I found a solution that is a bit ugly, but good enough for me and might be usefull for you.
There are few sceensavers in Xscreensaver package that supports running a command while screensaver is running.
For example "phosphor" has a flag "-program", so you can run inside a script that is reseting your keyboard layout to default "US", by command:
'setxkbmap -layout us'. Your phosphor xscreensaver command may looks like:
phosphor -root -delay 72174 -scale 2 -ticks 22 -program 'setxkbmap -layout us && setxkbmap -query'. So once xscreensaver is active the keyboard layout is "US" and you always know you're on the right layout to enter your password.

tosiara

Member

Registered: 2012-09-04

Posts: 1

Re: XScreenSaver and keyboard layout

I have same issue. I need to know what is the current layout

olegt,

I have tried your workaround, but it removes all the layouts and leaves only US in the Keyboard Layout panel so there is nothing to switch after the screensaver (need to re-add all the languages)

Last edited by tosiara (2012-09-04 11:42:16)

Sideburns

Member

From: Trinidad, CO

Registered: 2011-03-30

Posts: 467

Website

Re: XScreenSaver and keyboard layout

Do you have to have your screen locked when your screensaver is active?  If not, turn that feature off.

---

Registered Linux user #470359
Permanently recovered BOFH
Any advice in this post is worth exactly what you paid for it.