Desktop: Shift+Alt moves focus to top menu instead of changing keyboard layout

[42lacksky]

I confirm (by marking "x" in the [ ] below: [x]):

• [x] This is not a troubleshooting question. Troubleshooting questions go here: http://www.mattermost.org/troubleshoot/.
• [x] This doesn't reproduce on web browsers (such as in Chrome). If it does, issue reports go to the Mattermost Server repository.
• [x] I have read contributing guidelines.

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Summary
When doing Alt+Shift, top menu opens instead of changing keyboad language (the same issue Skype had few weeks ago).

Environment

• Operating System: Ubuntu 18.04
• Mattermost Desktop App version: 4.3.0

Steps to reproduce
Open Desktop app, type Alt+Shift

Expected behavior
Keyboard layout changes.

Observed behavior
Focus is now on top menu of Mattermost window.

[amyblais]

Opened a ticket here: https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-19601.

[baskinsy]

I can confirm this issue also that was not existed on the 4.2.3 version I was using up to now. My version is 4.3.1.

[tonal]

I can confirm version 4.3.2-rc1

[baskinsy]

If it helps, I want to report that this is happening on my main workstation with KDE and not on on my laptop with Ubuntu with the standard desktop environment.

[tonal]

Russian instruction for fixing Skype:
https://habr.com/ru/post/465377/

[thanosk]

Bug still present in 4.5.0 under Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (gnome desktop)

[baskinsy]

4.4.0 solved the problem on my KDE desktop.

[michael-vostrikov]

Workaround, works till application exit.

Menu - View - Developer Tools for Application Wrapper (Ctrl+Shift+I)
Execute in console:

$('.three-dot-menu').setAttribute('disabled', 'disabled');

Alt does not select the button, menu continues to work.

[Willyfrog]

i can't repro this neither in 20.04 nor 18.04
alt+shift isn't a valid shortcut and can't be set but it doesn't trigger the behaviour described, only by pressing an releasing alt does focus go to three dot menu.

closing the issue, but feel free to reopen if you have any more details.

[thanosk]

Steps to reproduce:

1. fresh (or not) install of vanilla gnome ubuntu, choose 2 or more keyboard layouts (i.e. English and Greek or Russian, etc.)
2. install and launch gnome-tweaks
3. in gnome-tweaks ui: Keyboard & Mouse -> Additional Layout Options -> Switching to another layout -> enable Alt + Shift
4. launch mattermost-desktop > 4.2.3 and press Alt + Shift to change keyboard layout.

The shortcut is 100% valid and XKB compliant. It is irrelevant that Gnome does not allow you to set it via its default UI menus.
The same shortcut can also be enabled via xkb cli commands or specific X.org.conf setup.

BTW, this bug probably belongs upstream to Electron. It would be nice if someone pays attention/care to it, but yea, my hopes are down.

[artiommorozov]

Reproduces on 4.6.2 with windows 10. Issue didn't exist prior to upgrade, i was on 4.1. Workaround with three-dot-menu helps.

[thanosk]

Workaround with three-dot-menu will stop being helpful after 4.7.0 releases (I'm testing with all beta and rc 4.7.0 releases), at least under Ubuntu. While the workaround will indeed keep disabling the three-dot-menu, pressing just a single Alt will still move the focus out of the text box (so, we will need to find a better workaround, perhaps).

I'm disappointed that this bug will be open probably forever and never fixed, either specially by mattermost-desktop or generally by upstream Electron. The same bug plagues whatever else is electron-based, with the most familiar example probably being Skype.

It will be interesting to see if Windows at some point gets affected as well, because as of this time Alt+Shift works perfectly well with no workarounds there, but I'm noticing that the Alt behaviour is not consistent version after version.

[phpony]

Confirm this on 4.6.2 with Windows 10.

Actually this bug makes Mattermost Desktop absolute unusable on multi-locale systems. When you switch layouts multiple times per each message - at some point you just close app and go to web version for how much annoying this bug is.

[artiommorozov]

Workaround is available for Windows although it takes time to get used to :). Switching layout by holding Shift first and then pressing Alt doesn't trigger menu.

[thanosk]

Holding Shift first also works on Linux (Ubuntu, etc.). Another workaround is to press Alt+Shift carefully/slowly like this: Press Alt, cool, press Shift, then release Shift, cool, then release Alt. But the whole thing is already on the ridiculous level side of things ...

[phpony]

Another workaround is to press Alt+Shift carefully/slowly like this: Press Alt, cool, press Shift, then release Shift, cool, then release Alt.

You've dug really deep into this issue, that's great! How about we create a startup project selling people hardware patches for this issue? Similar to this ones:

We'll dig some real $$$ for next few years until this issue will be addressed.

[phpony]

Going back to serious matters - there's the solution:

https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/11106#issuecomment-441350115

[Chydak13]

reproduce on Ubuntu 20, client 4.6.2
@thanosk Thank you so much for this workaround :)