I am using a new Dell Computer and the latest version of Thunderbird for email. Using the Keyman keyboard for my language (Areare), the space bar inserts spaces, but the cursor doesn’t move. Also, the cursor will jump back to the previously typed text if there are other spaces before the cursor that were typed with a standard keyboard. I have used Thunderbird for years and have not seen this before. Libre Office and Paratext 9.5 do not have this problem.
Has anyone experienced this? Is there a way to fix it?
Welcome to our community, @Ron_Gebauer
Thunderbird v139.0.1 seem to not work with Keyman keyboard. I tested with the Ɂareɂare keyboard and US Basic keyboard with Keyman v19.0.40, the issue is reproducible.
I’ve created a bug(windows): compatibility issue with Thunderbird · Issue #14111 · keymanapp/keyman · GitHub. Could you go over and provide other missing information related to your version of Keyman, Thunderbird, keyboard, and more?
For now, whenever you type a space you must move the cursor using the arrow key to go behind the inserted space.
Please reach out to let the Thunderbird team know about this as well.
The same thing happens with Firefox, another Mozilla product (I encountered the problem while using my Greek_tonizo keyboard).
This is the latest in an increasing number of problems with keyman and Mozilla firefox. These are:
(a) losing context while typing (already submitted as a bug),
(b) having the cursor move to the previous line when typing a particular set of chars. I did not report this, because I thought it may be solved with the two previous problems.
I wonder whether some previous version of Mozilla would work better.
This is quite possible and not that hard to verify. We can download old versions of Firefox from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/. In software engineering, when we think we have a regression, we ‘bisect’ to find the last version that doesn’t .
We start back at a version we can verify as working correctly. The last version we tested as working correctly was 86.0. So:
- Download and install version 86 from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/86.0.1/
- Verify that the behaviour does not emerge on this version. If this version fails, we stop here and start investigating in a different direction.
- However, if v86.0 is working, then we start the bisect: the latest release of Firefox is 139.0. We take a version half way between these versions: version 112.
- Install version 112 and test. If it works, bisect up (v125), otherwise bisect down (v99).
- Eventually we will have two consecutive versions where one works and the next one doesn’t. This reduces the search for the breaking change to a single version set.
@mengheng do you want to try doing this?
Of course, @Marc. I’ll work on this.
As of now, I have tested the Greek Tonizo keyboard on Firefox v86.0.1, v112.0, and v127.0 but could not get the exact behavior while switching between Greek and English as my Display language on Windows 10 Home v2009 build 19045.5737 with Keyman v19.0.40-alpha.
Above image is from Firefox
v139.0.1 hexhero.
Instead, I found an inconsistent result when typing a while moving the cursor within the copied text between Firefox to Chrome and Notepad.
| Platform | Copied text result |
|---|---|
| Firefox v139 | UTF8 to ἀαhexadecimaαα |
| Chrome v137.0.7151.57 | UTF8 to ἀἀhexadecimaἀἀ |
| Notepad | UTF8 to ἀἀhexadecimaἀἀ |
Firefox
Chrome
| Platform | Copied text result | Typed text result |
|---|---|---|
| Firefox v139 | ζο, τοα | ζο, τοα |
| Chrome v137.0.7151.57 | ζo, τὸἀ | ζο, τοα |
| Notepad | ζo, τὸἀ | ζο, τοα |
Firefox
Chrome
Notepad
@amadel, could you help us to know which is the expected result?
@Marc, I’m planning to bisect for Thunderbird as well since I won’t be able to test this on Windows 11.
I tried firefox 137.0.2 and the space problem disappears. However even if we find a previous version where all problems disappear, this is no solution because firefox automatically upgrades to the latest version!
I will keep trying with older versions and will come back to you.
@marc @mengheng
I just tried greek_tonizo in firefox v. 86.0.1 Both keying problems (space not “working” and cursor “jumping” at the end of the previous line when a diacritic is keyed at the beginning of a new line) are OK.
I need to use firefox a little bit more in order to check the “loss of context” problem. I disabled the automatic upgrade of firefox in order to do this and I will let you know as soon as I have results.
@mengheng thanks for the effort you made
I made a video illustrating the second problem in using Greek tonizo in firefox 139. The first one is the spaces problem that was already reported in Thunderbird. None of these two problems appear in Chrome or Edge. The video is taken from a yahoo email and I made it as short as possible in order to avoid overcoming the upload file limits.
The first line typed is my name in Greek: Ἀμαρυλλίς
I then go to the next line and type a diacritic (the single quote key of the US keyboard) and then a vowel: upper case alpha, which is in the same position as the English querty alpha. Greek Tonizo will produde the upper case alpha with two diacritics: the one keyed and a second one set automatically after a space or at the beginning of a new line. Notice how the resulting char jumps to the previous line.
I hope this helps you reproduce the error in your tests.
Note: There is another problem that I had reported a while ago which is intermittent and hence, impossible to reproduce. It is related to Keyman losing context under some unknown circumstances (most probably related to mozilla). Since some Greek Tonizo rules are triggered by either the first char of a line or a space, this “losing context” symptom may be linked to the above problem(s).
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@amadel
Thank you for this screenshot I was able to determine it works fine in 138.0 but not in 138.0.1. I will go through the Mozilla release notes for 138.0.1 to see if we can see anything about TSF etc.
138.0 Thunderbird doesn’t exhibit the space problem of the original post. Both most likely are related to the same buggy behavior.
For Clarity there are 3 seperate issue in this discussion. 3 seperate github issues have been created. Even if some ultimately have the same cause.
Here is the list as I understand it.
- bug(windows): compatibility with thunderbird typing space does not correctly align the cursor after the space. #14111
- bug(windows): cursor moves to the previous line when typing a particular key sequence - firefox 138.0.1 compatibility issue. #14148
- bug(windows): after pasting text with Ctrl+V, Keyman appears to lose context with Firefox #13666
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GOOD NEWS!
Firefox 139.0.4 resolves issues 1 and 2 above.
I have up to now not encountered issue no 3. I keep typing as much as possible and will let you know of the results.
Thanks for the help.
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Tha is good news. I saw the new version come through but I didn’t think it helped for me maybe I needed to restart Windows to ensure any background process from the previous version had actually stopped
I just restarted and checked 1 and 2 still fail for me. Windows 10 22H2. Firefox 139.0.4.
In gmail.com compose an new email in the body section of the email both 1 & 2 are still a problem.
Edit: I just checked with Yahoo mail and both 1. blank space and 2. character moving to the previous line still don’t work.
I am on a alpha version for Keyman.
Keyman version: 19.062
This is strange I wonder if there is another setting @amadel has that Firefox now works.
I am getting the exact behaviors of #14148 (cursor jump to previous line) and #14111 (space issue) on Gmail and Yahoo mail on Firefox v139.0.4 but not Google docs Firefox or Chrome and not Gmail on Chrome.
Using Keyman v18.0.238:
- Greek Tonizo
- 'Are’are
I just tried out what @mengheng tried writing a message in my yahoo.gr mail and indeed the problem persists with firefox 139.0.4.
Then I tried entering text in the textbox of the following application:
Everything is OK.
I then tried entering text in a email using a gmail.com account. The problem reappears.
I then tried entering text in a Google docs document. Everything OK.
Finally, I tried entering text in this textbox:
Ἀμαρυλλίς
ἂν
Everything OK.
Conclusion: entering text in textboxes is OK. entering text in emails is not OK.
Can you make out something out of this?
Many thanks…
PS. I verified again that emails are properly keyed in Chrome, so the problem is solely presenting itself in Firefox + email programs.