http://community.livejournal.com/xkbconfig/982.html
Ouch. Half a day of reading ;-/ Summary:
1. Flags represent sovereignty, and their very presence is politically loaded.
Experience proved there is no way to ship flags without offending some
users.
GNOME removed all flags and their HIG recommends against the use of flags.
http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/principles-broad-userbase.html.en#internationalization
(KDE ships flags but some distributions censor them. RedHat got burned and
removed all flags.)
2. The use of flags to represent languages is imprecise anyway.
The use of flags to represent keyboard layout is doubly imprecise and
ambiguous.
Finally, flags are not always visually distinct - color blindness is
obvious, and many are really similar:
http://www.jankoatwarpspeed.com/post/2008/10/27/You-should-never-use-flags-for-language-choice.aspx#1
3. For these reasons the keyboard indicator defaults to labels.
Flags are still supported because some users (including the indicator's
developer) want flags.
OK, so shipping flags is a bad idea.
(Technically, if this is the conclusion, the original bug is a WontFix.
Should I open a new bug to discuss the spinoff?)
But we still have sub-optimal usability:
- The labels are not precise. The full layout names are a bit better but too
long to display in panel.
Layout naming is a historically a mess - some are named by country, some by
language.
- The labels are hard to distinguish visually.
I see several improvement directions:
- Write layout names in repsective script (and language?). E.g. "USA" / "עבר"
/ "Рус".
- Support: Wikipedia language choice uses this style (with full language
names);
googling for "language flags" leads to much web design advice suggesting
this style over flags.
- Choose labels per layout that indicate not just the language but the exact
layout.
E.g. "Eng" or "QWER" vs. "Dvrk" or "PYFG" is better than "USA" vs. "USA2".
- Use Jaunty's shiny new notifications on keyboard change, showing full name
(in respective language).
The time should probably be made shorter, e.g. 0.5 seconds.
- Allow users to select indicator color per layout in the GUI.
This provides as much visual distinction as flags or arbitrary images, while
not confusing the user with
"Where would I now find a good image of dvorak?" and "If they allow images,
why don't they ship flags?".
Note that these options are non-exclusive. Any subset would help.
Notifications + color together are probably an overkill, but I can't guess
beforehand which is more usable.
--
Keyboard indicator flags are missing
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80702
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