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dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

[SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Hello,

I experience a strange issue.
Everything was working okay until recently, but at some point, I realized that the Alt key is not working with WPS-Office.
I am not sure if this is related to an update of some packages, but it does not appear to be WPS-Office problem because the app was not updated recently.

The Alt key is working okay with other apps. I couldn't find any other apps affected by this.

I tend to believe that it is something related to the locale because later I realized the that right-click button on the keyboard is also not working with WPS-Office.

My locale seems to be set correctly:

$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

I tried to force locale to the app opening it from the terminal with:

$ LANG=en_US.utf8 /usr/bin/et

but no success.

Any ideas?

Last edited by dsch (2019-07-28 22:23:22)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,867

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

This is unlikely related to the locale - is your display server X11 or wayland?
Since many (incl me ;-) may not be familiar w/ wps-office: what's the expected behavior of the disfunctional keys (and what happens instead)?

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dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Hello @seth thanks for the answer.

The Alt key in WPS is the main hot key that brings you to the ribbon and you can continue pressing keys to construct a shortcut.

It is exactly the way Excel shortcuts work if it happens to be familiar with them.

Instead of that, Alt is a dead key now, as if nothing is triggered.

Same with the right-click menu key, obviously that would show the right-click menu, but it does nothing instead.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,867

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Do the actual Alt+<somekey> shortcuts still work? Sounds like a popup related issue?

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Those shortcuts work a bit differently than the regular shortcuts where you get to press a couple of buttons simultaneously.

Here you press Alt and then letters appear on the ribbon then you press the desired letter and then the next and so on. It's a sequence of key presses that must start with Alt. Without the Alt you are just typing the letters into the cell, which is what's happening in my case.

The Alt key is not working, the letters are typed into the active cell instead of "browsing" around the ribbon.

Last edited by dsch (2019-07-28 20:41:45)

dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

And I am on X11

dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Also, global shortcuts still work, like Alt+F4 closes the program.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,867

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Try
a) a different (new) user
b) a different window manager

Reason: you claim the application itself wasn't recently updated and its major toolkit (gtk2) was neither (1½ years old) so it's either a bug in the application that was only recently triggered (and is likely bound to a certain configuration) or a conflict w/ the WM (assuming the principal issue is the failure to display some ribbon/popup window)

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

Option a) didn't work. I have the same behavior as a newly created user.
Option b) requires me to install a new WM, and since I am on Plasma, things are getting complicated. I think only i3 works with some configuration, so probably I'll have to install a new WM/DE bundle to test.
This will take some, so I'll probably try it tomorrow.
Thanks for the help so far.

Last edited by dsch (2019-07-28 22:04:32)

dsch

Member

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Locale/keyboard layout issue with WPS-Office

I am closing this topic, as the issue appears to be with WPS.
Not sure how it occurred without an update, but removing it and installing the stable version (and older version) the Alt key works. The right-click menu key still doesn't work, but it becomes clear that this is not related to locale.
Thanks @seth