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graham
Asked: 2023-04-29 00:47:56 +0800 CST

Keyboard application Shortcut

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It used to be the case that using Ctrl + ; (semi-colon) (specifically but not limited to) Google Sheets would insert the current date in a cell (assuming the cell format is set to do so) but just recently, I have noted that this shortcut produces an underlined e char and pressing space adds an additional context menu. Pressing Enter removes the character and control to the cell is restored after another keypress or by pressing Esc.

This is not specific to Google Sheets and is thus posted here. It also occurs in terminal with the same behaviour and in other apps across the spectrum.

Nor is it specific to my PC in isolation. I tried this on my 20.04 instance and it performed correctly. I also tried it on another 22.04 instance (with the same keyboard layout but a different keyboard) and experienced the same issue so it appears to be a feature of 22.04.2 with Gnome 42.5 and 5.19.0-41-generic Kernel on both 22.04 instances.

I'd appreciate any guidance on how to resolve this issue. It's not super serious as manually inputting the date in Sheets and using the semi-colon on its own elsewhere works fine but it seems something has changed along the way.

22.04

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This is not actually a bug nor something "broken" - it's simply a default change in GNOME.

    Previously, GNOME had a default keyboard shortcut for Emoji Mode of Ctrl + Shift + E for this (see What does [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [e] do, while typing text? which shows this in an older version of Ubuntu).

    However, it seems they changed the default to Ctrl + . and Ctrl + ; recently. This is confirmed in my 22.04 machine when we look at ibus-setup (note I run my system theme in Dark Mode, which is why everything is dark on my screen):

    enter image description here

    You can simply change this with ibus-setup (execute this on the command line and it opens up the iBus Preferences window) and change the keyboard shortcut. Nothing's broken but a change was made. This is likely in the GNOME upstream changelogs somewhere, or was a change decided upon by Ubuntu.

    In either case, this is readily fixable and not a bug nor "broken". Changed defaults are not a "breakage" in anything.

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