Re: [Linux] problems with several linux desktop environments
Posted: Mar 28th, '18, 16:08
I've tracked down the issue. The problem (at least on Ubuntu 17.10 with the Gnome desktop) is that the SDL2 is reporting multiple key-down events for certain keys like the arrow keys. It also seems to randomly report backspace events, which is what is causing the find box to behave strangely.
This is not a bug in GP itself.
The fact that events work okay on many other Linux desktops makes me suspect that it's either a bug in the Gnome3 desktop's event handling or possibly a bug in SDL2. In fact, the latest version of SDL2, 2.0.8, does not manifest the bug, but that could be because SDL2 added a work-around for an underlying Gnome3 bug. Unfortunately, GP built using that version of SDL2 randomly stops displaying objects in certain projects, a much worse problem! Same with SDL 2.0.7. So, until the SDL display issue is resolved, we need to stick with SDL2 2.0.5, on which GP is stable.
However, I have a partial workaround that involves ignoring the second key-down event when the key-down events are duplicated. That fixes the arrow keys being doubled. It doesn't fix the random behavior of the "find" box, but I've found that the "find" box works okay if you type slowly -- does that work for you?
You might do some detective work with Google to see if you can find any information on Gnome3 bugs that might cause doubled key-down or extra backspace events. It's possible that this is a known problem that will get fixed in a future Gnome release.
This is not a bug in GP itself.
The fact that events work okay on many other Linux desktops makes me suspect that it's either a bug in the Gnome3 desktop's event handling or possibly a bug in SDL2. In fact, the latest version of SDL2, 2.0.8, does not manifest the bug, but that could be because SDL2 added a work-around for an underlying Gnome3 bug. Unfortunately, GP built using that version of SDL2 randomly stops displaying objects in certain projects, a much worse problem! Same with SDL 2.0.7. So, until the SDL display issue is resolved, we need to stick with SDL2 2.0.5, on which GP is stable.
However, I have a partial workaround that involves ignoring the second key-down event when the key-down events are duplicated. That fixes the arrow keys being doubled. It doesn't fix the random behavior of the "find" box, but I've found that the "find" box works okay if you type slowly -- does that work for you?
You might do some detective work with Google to see if you can find any information on Gnome3 bugs that might cause doubled key-down or extra backspace events. It's possible that this is a known problem that will get fixed in a future Gnome release.