Indicate the active keyboard layout in 'Keyboard Preferences'->Layouts

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

Do you also have concrete suggestions on how to make things easier?

I think the best think to do would be a "Currently Active" column in Keyboard Preferences. This would allow the user to see which Layout is active. The Currently Active column could be check box so that the user could select the desired layout.

The button marked "apply system wide" is potentially confusing, as the user could think that the layout is being applied, and making it the currently active layout.

It might also be nice if the Keyboard Indicator panel applet, was enabled when more than one layout exists in Keyboard Preferences. Perhaps, upon adding a second layout, the user could be asked if they want to enable the applet to make keyboard layout switching easy.

Could you open a GNOME bug about this, those are the people writting this software, there is a low chance it will get changed by the ubuntu team or useful if staying on launchpad this way

The keyboard preferences already create an tray icon once a second keyboard layout has been added and that tray icon shows the current keyboard layout. However, I do think that the Keyboard Preferences — apart from needing a thorough redesign to remove all the UI clutter — should indicate the currently active keyboard layout on the 'Layouts' tab, so I'm accepting this as a papercut because this should be very easy to fix.

Reported upstream.

Upstream does not want to make this change, quoting upstream:

"The user should (one day, may be not immediately:) understand the connection between that indicator and the keyboard configuration - otherwise the whole kbd configuration system does not make sense to him.

First question you'd expect: how would he know the current active layout if he closes the keyboard configuration? LOOKING AT THE INDICATOR.

So, still WONTFIX"

1) The connection is not obvious to everyone
2) The fact that the indicator already shows the currently active layout doesn't mean we can't show it in the keyboard settings window as well.
3) The fact that the user "should (one day, may be not immediately:) understand" the connection already demonstrates that the connection isn't obvious to new users. They have to learn it. Why not make this small change and help them understand the wretched UI that is the keyboard layout settings?

Would this be worth adding a patch for?

The general pattern is that when an item in a status menu opens a window, that window shows a superset of the information from the menu. The battery status menu shows the charge for a battery, and a menu item opens a window that shows the charge *and* other things. The sound menu shows the volume, and one of its items opens a window that shows the volume *and* other settings. The keyboard menu should show the current layout, and one of its items opens a window that should show the current *and* other settings. In each case, we should cater for people who want to access the information or settings without having the relevant menu in their panel at all.

A simple solution to this is to add a column of radio buttons to the left of the "Layouts" list. Make sure the radio buttons do not interfere with drag and drop for items in the list. And make sure to update the radio buttons whenever I change the layout using the keyboard combo.