Shortcuts with Ctrl+Alt modifiers may prevent some keyboard users from inputting non-English text.

[AndreiTelteu]

Hi.
My Romanian keyboard layout is set so Right Alt + S writes Ș, but on brackets Alt + S goes for save.
I need to disable the Alt + (s,a,q,i,t) (if any).
Thanks.

Tasks

• Detect keyboard layout and make that info available to JS extension.
• Create a json file listing all different keyboard layouts with all the keys requiring AltGr key to input special characters.
• Filter out all shortcuts that have a key listed in the json file for the detected keyboard layout.
• Unit tests

[RaymondLim]

Are you on Linux? If you're on Windows, we've already disabled Ctrl+Alt+S shortcut for your keyboard layout and altGr+S should be working for you to type Ș. So I wonder what version you're running if you're on Windows.

[AndreiTelteu]

Windows 8.1, sprint 42.
Alt + S saves the file and Alt + T shows my ToDo list from the Todo extension.

[RaymondLim]

Yes, I can reproduce it on my win7. I thought I've fixed it for all keyboard layouts and somehow my changes are not working for Romanian keyboard layout.

[AndreiTelteu]

Keyboard layout: Romanian (Programmers).
For now looks like i can write ș with caps lock on + Alt + Shift + S.

[pthiess]

@RaymondLim I put a card for this into nomination if this seems less than half a day of dev work to fix this issue please move it into development any time. Otherwise please reassign to @ryanstewart to review; we decided to keep a medium priority with this milestone after discussing to bump it to a high immediately.

[RaymondLim]

This issue is different from #7859 that I fixed and thought my fix also covers this. Actually, there are two categories of altGr key issues.

1. In CTRL+F and CTRL+G shortcuts don't work on keyboards with AltGr key (Sprint 39) #7859, it is a key requiring to press altGr key is used in a shortcut. For example, [ key on Czech keyboard requires to press altGr key and when it is used with any modifier keys as in Ctrl+[, then the shortcut is not available to Czech keyboard users.
2. This issue (Shortcuts with Ctrl+Alt modifiers may prevent some keyboard users from inputting non-English text. #8666) falls into the second category. In this category some shortcuts are already preassigned to input some non-English text on Windows. For instance, Ctrl+Alt+S is already used to input Ș on Romania keyboard and if Brackets assigns this combination to a shortcut, then users of that keyboard layout won't be able to type that special character.

In order to fix the issue we need to detect keyboard layout in Brackets shell code and make that keyboard language info available to JavaScript side. Then on JavaScript side we have to use that info to filter out all shortcuts already preassigned to a specific keyboard layout. I estimate that I need two days of work to fix this issue.

[RaymondLim]

Update title to better describe the issue. (was Alt Shortcuts)

[AndreiTelteu]

To input Ș we need just Right ALT + S (without Ctrl).

[RaymondLim]

@AndreiTelteu Right Alt is the same as Ctrl+Alt combination and is called altGr key.

[AndreiTelteu]

Sorry i didn't knew that.

[RaymondLim]

No worries. You can get more details here.

[dangoor]

Reviewed for 1.0 milestone (also adding Nominations label)

[mardraze]

Extension is available
https://github.com/mardraze/brackets-international-keyboards

[chylex]

Thanks a lot @mardraze, such a useful feature!

[piotr-cz]

confirming that @mardraze extension fixes the issue on windows for Polish programmer's keyboard.

[redmunds]

@AndreiTelteu @mardraze @chylex @piotr-cz There is a pull request (#10109) to fix this issue -- please test if you have the time.

[redmunds]

@AndreiTelteu @mardraze @chylex @piotr-cz We have posted Brackets 1.1 Prerelease builds with this support.

[chylex]

Sorry for the delay, can confirm it works, thanks!

[piotr-cz]

Can confirm too, issue is resolved in v1.1