Can't interact with hints

[garlicbreadcleric]

I'm on KDE (Kubuntu 24.04). After installing and triggering hints, I'm seeing the labels at the right places, but when I type letters shown on labels nothing happens (no clicks, and the labels don't go away and don't react to typing in any way). I've tried adding the accessibility variables from the README to /etc/environment and rebooting, but nothing changed. I've tried switching backends as well - it changes the way labels are detected, but doesn't affect my issue. When running hints from shell, I immediately see this:

(hints:7743): dbind-WARNING **: 12:55:38.828: AT-SPI: Unable to open bus connection: Failed to connect to socket /run/user/1000/at-spi2-PUTVZ2/socket: No such file or directory

Please let me know where else I can find information needed to debug this.

[AlfredoSequeida]

Intersting, I haven't seen this before but I was using hints on KDE Ubuntu tu 20.04 today without issues, so I don't think this is a hints problem. I found this https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/532585/getting-dbind-warnings-about-registering-with-the-accessibility-bus#532589.

They mention adding an environment variable maybe you can give that a try?

[garlicbreadcleric]

They mention adding an environment variable maybe you can give that a try?

Well, that removed the warning message :) Didn't affect the hints though.
I've experimented a bit more and recorded. One interesting thing I noticed is that sometimes with OpenCV backend (w/o the color inversion) I get a single hint without a label at the window center, and then if I press any key mouse pointer moves to it (examples 1 & 2). But if I get hints with labels via any backend, pressing any keys doesn't do anything, so I just have to cancel hints via pressing escape.

hints-2024-12-31_15.35.31.mp4

[AlfredoSequeida]

Hmmm, it's also interesting that escape works, but not the other keys. The key handler for the escape key is the same as for the other keys, which means the hanlder is working. Any chance your keyboard doesnt send standard character codes? Maybe the letters just don't match the characters that are expected? An easy way to check would be to print out what keys are sent.

I'm not in front of a computer right now, but if you edit: /home/$USER/.local/share/pipx/venvs/hints/lib64/python*/site-packages/hints/huds/overlay.py

You might need to edit python* to match your python version.

You can add a print statement right below this line:

hints/hints/huds/overlay.py

Line 229 in 84f599f

keyval_lower = Gdk.keyval_to_lower(keyval)

Like: print(f"keyval: {keyval_lower}")

So we can see the original character value.

And the one below this line:

hints/hints/huds/overlay.py

Line 243 in 84f599f

hint_chr = chr(keyval_lower)

Like: print(f"character value: {hint_chr}")

Then run the program again and see what the outputs are in the command line as you type.

[garlicbreadcleric]

Thanks a lot for the tips! I have to leave the computer right now, but I'll check it out as soon as I can.

[EventHorizontal]

Hello all, I just tried out this program today. I am running on pop-os and installation went smoothly and like @garlicbreadcleric I too have the hints pop up (mapped it to Super+I) but then cannot interact. Escaping out works. I put the print statements in the python file like @AlfredoSequeida outlined, and ran sleep 2 & hints -v from the terminal, switched to browser, and then hit some letter keys. I get the following error every time I try pressing a key:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/<my_username>/.local/pipx/venvs/hints/lib/python3.10/site-packages/hints/huds/overlay.py", line 244, in on_key_press
    hint_chr = chr(keyval_lower)
ValueError: chr() arg not in range(0x110000)
keyval: 16779743

It fails to print hint_chr most of the time, and when it does its not the key I pressed (I see a bunch of left arrows, closing parentheses and semicolons, I think its showing this for Alt, Tab, and Escape? Letter keys cause the error above). From what I can tell the key code number is out of range? I tried lowercase and uppercase letters, but no difference.

[AlfredoSequeida]

Thank you @EventHorizontal I'm wondering if @garlicbreadcleric is experiencing the same issue. This looks like it could be a system specific thing. Can I get more information on your system (distro/wm/de) and also do you have any rules/software setup for typing other languages or special characters? Do you use an external keyboard? What's the keyboard's brand/model. Anything here that can give us more information would help as I can't replicate the issue on my end.

[EventHorizontal]

Here's a subset of my neofetch output:

OS: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS x86_64
Kernel: 6.9.3-76060903-generic
DE: GNOME 42.9
WM: Mutter

And my keyboard is a Logitech K120, it plugs in via USB to my desktop.

[garlicbreadcleric]

@AlfredoSequeida Ok so I tried this, on ac<esc> it gives me:

keyval: 1734
hint_chr: ۆ
keyval: 1747
hint_chr: ۓ
keyval: 65307
hint_chr: ；

Unlike @EventHorizontal I don't get an arg not in range exception though.

System info:

• OS: Kubuntu 24.04 LTS x86_64
• Kernel: 6.8.0-51-generic
• DE: Plasma 5.27.11
• WM: KWin

I'm using an ASUS TUF laptop with a builtin keyboard.

[garlicbreadcleric]

So, I kinda figured it out.

keyval_name = Gdk.keyval_name(keyval_lower)
print(f"keyval_name: {keyval_name}")

This shows key names for the Russian layout I'm using along side with the US one (even though currently active layout is US). I've tried changing group when doing translate_keyboard_state from 1 to 0, and it works now (regardless of the currently active layout). I've never worked with GDK though so I have no idea what is the proper fix for this.

# if keyval is bound, keyval, effective_group, level, consumed_modifiers
_, keyval, _, _, consumed_modifiers = keymap.translate_keyboard_state(
    event.hardware_keycode,
    Gdk.ModifierType(event.state & ~Gdk.ModifierType.LOCK_MASK),
    0,
)

[AlfredoSequeida]

Glad to hear you figured it out! I haven't had much time to look into this because I've been focused on the Wayland functionality. But I will try to replicate this as soon as I can with another language layout like you have setup. And see if I can find a good way to accommodate things so that it works with other layouts as well based on your findings.

[jsquaredosquared]

Hi @EventHorizontal, did you ever get hints to work on Pop!_OS? I am having a similar problem.

Hello all, I just tried out this program today. I am running on pop-os and installation went smoothly and like @garlicbreadcleric I too have the hints pop up (mapped it to Super+I) but then cannot interact. Escaping out works.

[EventHorizontal]

Hi @jsquaredosquared, just saw this. No I never got it working but I haven't tried since then.

[nnra6864]

Hey, I wanted to report that I just experienced the keyboard language issue.
I recently added 2 more layouts in my hyprland config and had to comment them out in order for hints to work.
This is not a big deal to me as I rarely use these layouts, however, I could certainly see it being a dealbreaker for many.

    kb_layout = us#, ru, rs
    kb_variant =  #,   , latin

[AlfredoSequeida]

@nnra6864 Thank you for bringing this up as well as showing me how to recreate the issue with your hyprland config! I haven't had time to get to this issue, but I think this will be the next issue I tackle when I get the time. This was put off by the Wayland implementations and I never got around to it.