I did some research. I totally mis-diagnosed the problem earlier; seems
like it's a problem with key translation (or how is it called properly?).
First of all, I've confirmed that this is indeed a problem with upstream
x11vnc. It's present in Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon, it doesn't matter which
VNC viewer do I use (the problem persists even with x11vnc's "Java
viewer"), and it's not present with other VNC servers. (Do I have to go
upstream in this case? Where?)
I've read the manpage carefully and tried all kinds of keyboard-related
options, and some of them had some effect, but I couldn't get the
"correct" behaviour, so I"m trying to find out what the problem is by
looking at the "x11vnc -dk" output. And I can't figure it out on my own,
as I know very little about how keyboards work and how the keys are
supposed to be transferred... (But I see that other VNC servers got it
perfectly right, so it should be possible; I just really like x11vnc and
don't want to go with the other ones!)
The problem is:
- I have two layouts on my local machine: "us" and "ru"
- Everything works fine when the only layout on the remote machine is
"us"; my local layout is honored and all keys work properly.
- When I add the "ru" layout on the remote machine, the problems start:
everything is fine as long as my local layout is "us", but if I switch
it to "ru", then most keys are mangled in a way hard to describe in a
brief way.
I believe the correct behaviour would be similar to what vino has: the
remote layout is completely ignored, and only the local layout is honored.
The only thing that helped me partially was disabling modtweak; it only
mangled my keys even further. So I'm looking at the debug output without
modtweak. (And I'm omitting all the "Shift" presses and all the releases
for uncluttered view.)
Case #1:
- "ru" is NOT added on the remote machine
- the local layout is "ru"
I press й (located on "q") - I get й :
09/08/2016 05:46:23 # keyboard(down, 0x6ca "Cyrillic_shorti") uip=0
2058.5674
09/08/2016 05:46:23 keyboard(): KeySym 0x6ca "Cyrillic_shorti" ->
KeyCode 0x5d
09/08/2016 05:46:23 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x5d
"Cyrillic_shorti", down)
09/08/2016 05:46:23 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(93, 1) 2058.5685
I press " (located on Shift+2) - I get " :
09/08/2016 05:48:26 # keyboard(down, 0x22 "quotedbl") uip=0 2182.3190
09/08/2016 05:48:26 keyboard(): KeySym 0x22 "quotedbl" -> KeyCode 0x30
09/08/2016 05:48:26 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x30 "apostrophe", down)
09/08/2016 05:48:26 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(48, 1) 2182.3194
I press № (located on Shift+3) - I get № :
09/08/2016 05:50:22 # keyboard(down, 0x6b0 "numerosign") uip=0 2297.9047
09/08/2016 05:50:22 keyboard(): KeySym 0x6b0 "numerosign" -> KeyCode 0x78
09/08/2016 05:50:22 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x78 "numerosign", down)
09/08/2016 05:50:22 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(120, 1) 2297.9071
Case #2:
- adding "ru" to the remote machine, but not enabling it
- the local layout is "ru"
I press й (located on "q") - but for some reason I get q :
09/08/2016 05:52:17 # keyboard(down, 0x6ca "Cyrillic_shorti") uip=0
2413.0940
09/08/2016 05:52:17 keyboard(): KeySym 0x6ca "Cyrillic_shorti" ->
KeyCode 0x18
09/08/2016 05:52:17 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x18 "q", down)
09/08/2016 05:52:17 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(24, 1) 2413.0950
(Why is it being translated back into English?! Who's doing it and how
to disable it?!)
I press " (located on Shift+2) - I get " :
09/08/2016 05:53:27 # keyboard(down, 0x22 "quotedbl") uip=0 2483.1056
09/08/2016 05:53:27 keyboard(): KeySym 0x22 "quotedbl" -> KeyCode 0x30
09/08/2016 05:53:27 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x30 "apostrophe", down)
09/08/2016 05:53:27 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(48, 1) 2483.1066
(Why is this NOT translated into English, then?!)
I press ; (located on Shift+3) - I get : :
09/08/2016 05:57:24 # keyboard(down, 0x3b "semicolon") uip=0 2720.3259
09/08/2016 05:57:24 keyboard(): KeySym 0x3b "semicolon" -> KeyCode 0x2f
09/08/2016 05:57:24 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x2f "semicolon", down)
09/08/2016 05:57:24 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(47, 1) 2720.3265
(It is a SEMI-colon in both "us" and "ru" - why does it turn into a COLON?!)
Case #3:
- the remote layout is "ru"
- the local layout is "ru"
I press й (located on "q") - I get й:
09/08/2016 06:01:12 # keyboard(down, 0x6ca "Cyrillic_shorti") uip=0
2948.2130
09/08/2016 06:01:12 keyboard(): KeySym 0x6ca "Cyrillic_shorti" ->
KeyCode 0x18
09/08/2016 06:01:12 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x18 "q", down)
09/08/2016 06:01:12 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(24, 1) 2948.2142
I press " (located on Shift+2) - I get Э (located on the ' and " key ):
09/08/2016 06:02:28 # keyboard(down, 0x22 "quotedbl") uip=0 3023.8559
09/08/2016 06:02:28 keyboard(): KeySym 0x22 "quotedbl" -> KeyCode 0x30
09/08/2016 06:02:28 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x30 "apostrophe", down)
09/08/2016 06:02:28 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(48, 1) 3023.8568
I press № (located on Shift+3) - I get № :
09/08/2016 06:09:09 # keyboard(down, 0x6b0 "numerosign") uip=0 3424.7345
09/08/2016 06:09:09 keyboard(): KeySym 0x6b0 "numerosign" -> KeyCode 0xc
09/08/2016 06:09:09 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0xc "3", down)
09/08/2016 06:09:09 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(12, 1) 3424.7351
I press ; (located on Shift+4) - I get Ж (located on the : and ; key):
09/08/2016 06:10:12 # keyboard(down, 0x3b "semicolon") uip=0 3487.7910
09/08/2016 06:10:12 keyboard(): KeySym 0x3b "semicolon" -> KeyCode 0x2f
09/08/2016 06:10:12 XTestFakeKeyEvent(dpy, keycode=0x2f "semicolon", down)
09/08/2016 06:10:12 calling XTestFakeKeyEvent(47, 1) 3487.7920
I don't understand what am I supposed to do to get it to work properly,
I can't even figure out what's wrong, I couldn't find a solution in the
Internet or in the manpage, and the other VNC servers don't have this
problem, so I believe it's a bug. If it is not, then please direct me
towards what should I do to get it to work!
I can also post some debug with modtweak enabled, but I think this is
enough of a mess; modtweak is applied on top of this, so it's hardly
worth getting into at this stage.
I've also tried to mess with other options (this output was from x11vnc
-repeat -nomodtweak -dk); I can try various combinations of options
again, but I have no idea which ones...
--
darkpenguin
