KDE Plasma Space Bar Behavior
By T. H. Wright
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Today, I bumped into an issue of undesired keyboard behavior. Long ago I discovered the joys of the Compose Key, and within the past month I had to set up keyboards for languages besides English, as well as setting up IBus in order to have access to the full range of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) characters (although I’m pretty sure I still don’t have this functionality truly working). Besides these things, I thought I would never have to touch my keyboard layout again.
If you’ve ever been typing in Linux’s Desktop Environment (DE) KDE Plasma, you may have noticed when typing in all caps or a series of shifted characters (also known as second level characters or choosers) that hitting SHIFT and then the Space Bar does nothing. (All Caps literally means all capital letters for those who are computer illiterate or coming from a non-English background. It is often seen as disrespectful or annoying, and is frequently associated with video game nerds resorting to raging and attempted flaming. Rawr.) This behavior happens when there is no 2nd Layer assigned in your DE’s keyboard layout (KDE Plasma, in this case) space bar key. To fix this, we have to add the missing behavior.
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Open the Applications Menu from your desktop's panel and find the Keyboard settings program.
- I usually type the word keyboard and the computer begins searching for the settings application.
- KDE will simply call this settings program "Keyboard".
- Once you open it, it should have a title of "Keyboard Hardware and Layout".
- Once open, you will want to click on the Advanced tab.
- Make sure the Configure keyboard options setting is enabled.
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Find the option Using space key to input non-breaking space in the list of keyboard options.
- This was at the bottom of the list on my end and I'd suspect that to be standard.
- Click the dropdown arrow next to this top level option for a list of its settings.
- Enable the option Usual space at any level.
- Finally, hit Apply at the bottom of the window pane.
Your space bar should now insert a space regardless of what level of insertion is used. Let me know if I can be of further help!
Other DEs should require a similar change, though I have only ever done this with the Compose Key.