Non-working dead keys in Firefox

[XoR-42]

The use of dead keys to type accents does not seem to work in Firefox. For example typing 'ê' on a french keyboard, or any accent with the layout 'international with dead keys' leads to a character without accent.

It works properly in Chromium though.

Tested on the 'develop' branch locally, on pad.riseup.net and on pad.lqdn.fr.
Browsers: Firefox Nightly 39 and Firefox 36 on Linux.

[JohnMcLear]

Please test on http://beta.etherpad.org

Please explain what keystokes are required on a UK keyboard for me to replicate this issue.

[XoR-42]

Hi,
I tested on http://beta.etherpad.org and the issue remains.
To my knowledge there are no dead keys on the standard UK layout. However you can reproduce the bug by switching to an international layout with dead keys such as "English (Macintosh)" or "English (UK, international with dead keys)" (these names are how they appear on Gnome) which allow you to type accents using dead keys. For example on the latter, Meta+[ followed by e should produce the character ë (Meta is usually mapped on right alt key). You can also try the french layout that has a dead key for ^ (the [ key on a standard qwerty keyboard): [ followed by e should produce the character ê.

Thanks for the work done on this wonderful piece of software.
Best regards,

XoR

[JohnMcLear]

Works fine for me (English Macintosh) Alt Gr+ [ + e inserts ë in FF 36 on https://beta.etherpad.org/p/31h77r9uyI

[XoR-42]

I just re-tested across several OSs and it seems to work with Firefox 36 on OSX (10.8.5) and with Firefox 34 on Windows (Server 2008). I'm only able to reproduce on Linux systems (Debian, Archlinux, Ubuntu) with different desktop environments (Gnome, Enlightenment, Unity).

[JohnMcLear]

I tested FF 36 on Ubuntu FYI -_- ;/

[XoR-42]

I just retried with Firefox 35 on Ubuntu + Unity, french keyboard and I was still unable to type a ê.
It starts looking like a Heisenbug :/
EDIT: after updating to Firefox 36, I'm still able to reproduce...

[JohnMcLear]

What key do you have bound to Meta?

[XoR-42]

On my current machine (macbook pro running Gnome/Arch) with the "English (Macintosh)" layout, it's the right alt key. meta+e followed by e produces é, meta+` followed by a gives à etc. For the tests on the other machines I used the french layout and tried [ followed by e that is expected to produce ê (no meta key) or shift+[ followed by i that should produce ï.

[XoR-42]

By polling around, I found a Mint+Firefox 35+Gnome and a Gentoo+Firefox 31+xfce that do not exhibit the issue (french keyboard both of them)...
We also tried with a clean Firefox profile without any addon on one of the affected machines and it didn't help, so I think we can rule out that explanation :/

[XoR-42]

I tried to reproduced in a controlled environment. I ran untouched Ubuntu live isos in kvm-qemu virtual machines, added the french layout and tried to type ê with the virtual keyboard (onboard) - to avoid any interference linked to hardware or emulation - into a pad on http://beta.etherpad.org.

With the 14.10 iso everything's fine, after updating firefox too.
With the 15.04 daily build (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/) the bug appears and the dead keys to produce ê and ë characters do not work.

I hope that it will help to circumvent the bug, I'll try to find the time to dig into the code to understand its origin in the following weeks.

Best regards.

XoR

[JohnMcLear]

It sounds like the bug might be an OS bug if it's fine in 14.10 but not in 15.04.. I can try update my instances to 15.04 to see if I can create it..

[XoR-42]

I spotted a js warning in the console that seems related:
KeyboardEvent.key values starting with "Dead" are obsolete and will be merged into just "Dead". For more help https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEvent.key
I'm trying to find where the code responsible for the KeyboardEvent is.

[JohnMcLear]

jose@jose-healthy:~/etherpad-lite/src/static/js$ grep -rni dead .
jose@jose-healthy:~/etherpad-lite/src/static/js$ cd ..
jose@jose-healthy:~/etherpad-lite/src/static$ grep -rni dead .
jose@jose-healthy:~/etherpad-lite/src/static$ 

No our code?

[JohnMcLear]

ace2_inner.js handles key inputs btw.. And special keys..