When combo box doesn't have a value it's hard to see if interaction is possible

[lolek]

REPRODUCIBILITY: 100%
OS VERSION: probably any
HARDWARE: any
UI LANGUAGE: any
REGRESSION: no

DESCRIPTION:

there’s no clear indication on UI where interaction is possible from combo boxes when they are missing default value.
The following keyboard case is just an example but the problem is system wide.

PRECONDITIONS:

nothing special

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

1. in console do:

    dconf write /sailfish/text_input/enabled_layouts '["en-missing.qml"]'

2. go to: Settings → Text Input → Keyboard

EXPECTED RESULT:

It should be clear that there’s an interactive element next to Keyboard
see screenshot:

ACTUAL RESULT:

Right now we see only “Keyboard” label and nothing else, so it’s hard to to know that we can interact with it unless we are aware that there should be something.
See screenshot:

MODIFICATIONS:

nothing

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

If combo box value is empty maybe some “click here” or “type here” text or some other indicator that will allow user to easily spot place when the interaction is possible?

[nephros]

Are you using the Keyboard settings simply as an example (i.e. your complaint is about ComboBox in general), or is your bug actually about the Keyboard settings behaving in this way (i.e. you want a different display in that dialog when there’s an invalid value in the dconf key)?

EDIT: Ah it seems to be the former, as you have also done Keyboard not falling back to default layout when it can't find active one.

So about ComboBox:

The docs say:

Notice the value property defaults to the text of the currently selected option. In the above example, the current selection defaults to the first item in the menu because neither currentIndex nor currentItem have been set.

So if there is nothing displayed in the case it’s uninitialized, that seems to be a bug on the application side…
That being said, the behaviour of ComboBox has always been a bit fragile, an overhaul would be beneficial in any case.

[lolek]

this is more a general issue and keyboard in this case is just example. I’ll add this info to the bug report.