I switch between English and Arabic keyboards almost evenly, and often lock my PC with the Arabic keyboard active. So when I open the device excited to start work, and type in my password from muscle memory, it fails half the time since I have the wrong keyboard enabled.
There is of course the language indicator in the Wingpanel even on the lockscreen, but it's small and plain enough that it's too late to notice until I've already hit enter, and have to wait a few seconds till the entered password returns as failed.
Proposal
It would be really time and aggravation-saving help to have a more prominent language indicator, closer to the password prompt.
This would be a minor refinement, but would really help loads of users using wildly different keyboard layouts regularly — without changing a thing for people who use only one layout.
For the implementation of this indicator I have a few ideas:
When keyboard language differs from system language, display a message for the user. This is minimalist and clever, but it makes a presumption that may not always be true: that the user sets a password in their system language, thus needing to be notified of the keyboard layout only when it's different from the system language. But from my experience and exposure this may fit almost all users. For the users who don't fit this approximation, their experience wouldn't be any worse than it is currently.
Always show a language indicator. This would be consistent and clear, but it also adds overhead to a clean lockscreen and password prompt. Though it's no harm for users who don't use multiple layouts, and those who do shouldn't mind extra clarity.
And for it's placement:
Where the caps/num lock indicator appears. But this is quite a prominent placement, and would only be suitable if the indicator shows up when keyboard language differs from system language (implementation no. 1 above)
A small language indicator inset in the password field / right outside it. Could be the same as the keyboard layout indicator in the Wingpanel, and placing it in / around the password field solve the issue of not being noticeable.
Those were some quick ideas of the top of my head, and I hope they are in line with the elementary ethos and HIG.
This really is not a major issue, and the blame is on me/the user for not checking the keyboard layout before typing… but I've suffered from this long enough that I think others might be as well, and so this is worth reporting and improving 😅
Problem
I switch between English and Arabic keyboards almost evenly, and often lock my PC with the Arabic keyboard active. So when I open the device excited to start work, and type in my password from muscle memory, it fails half the time since I have the wrong keyboard enabled.
There is of course the language indicator in the Wingpanel even on the lockscreen, but it's small and plain enough that it's too late to notice until I've already hit enter, and have to wait a few seconds till the entered password returns as failed.
Proposal
It would be really time and aggravation-saving help to have a more prominent language indicator, closer to the password prompt.
This would be a minor refinement, but would really help loads of users using wildly different keyboard layouts regularly — without changing a thing for people who use only one layout.
For the implementation of this indicator I have a few ideas:
And for it's placement:
Those were some quick ideas of the top of my head, and I hope they are in line with the elementary ethos and HIG.
This really is not a major issue, and the blame is on me/the user for not checking the keyboard layout before typing… but I've suffered from this long enough that I think others might be as well, and so this is worth reporting and improving 😅
Thank you ❤️