Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC PATCH v2 0/6] Support to change VNC keyboard layout dynamically

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Wed, Dec 03, 2014 at 05:50:57PM +0800, Gonglei wrote:
> On 2014/12/3 17:38, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Dec 03, 2014 at 02:55:40PM +0800, address@hidden wrote:
> >> From: Gonglei <address@hidden>
> >>
> >> A bonus of this feature is that supporting different
> >> people (in different countries) using defferent keyboard
> >> to connect the same guest but not need to configure
> >> command line or libivrt xml file then restart guest.
> >>
> >> Using a new QMP command:
> >>     -> { "execute": "change-vnc-kbd-layout",
> >>                     "arguments": { "keymap": "de" } }
> >>     <- { "return": {}
> >>  
> >> I knew sdl and curses are using keyboard layout, but I don't know
> >> whether they both need to support this feature and add some new
> >> qmp command for them?
> >>
> >> If you have some ideas, please let me know. Thanks!
> > 
> > FWIW users of VNC are much better off not setting any keymap at all
> > in QEMU, and then using a client (such as GTK-VNC) that supports the
> > raw scancode extension. This takes QEMU out of the key remapping
> > business entirely, so that everything "just works" with no extra
> > configuration required in QEMU. This is what SPICE does by default
> > too.
> 
> Actually, my team had received the requirement of changing VNC keyboard
> layout dynamically on the scenario of  Desktop Cloud. The clientele just use
> the simplest tight vnc client, but not GTK-VNC etc. I think we should support
> this scenario, isn't it ?

Personally I think effort is better spent adding support for the keyboard
extension to more of the various VNC clients that exist. Having to issue
monitor commands to change keymap each time a different client wants to
connect is still a pretty sucky solution IMHO.

Regards,
Daniel
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