`More layouts…` on login screen: ~500 entries, no search — users can't find their layout

[oxidworks]

On the Linux Mint login screen (slick-greeter), clicking the keyboard icon → More layouts… opens the full XKB layout list with ~500 entries, no search, no filter, no grouping. In practice, users cannot find their layout — they either scroll endlessly or give up.

The list is overwhelming for what should be a trivial action. In 99 % of cases a user only needs one of maybe 10 common layouts (de, us, us-intl, fr, es, it, gb, ch…). The remaining ~490 entries are noise for the vast majority of users and actively prevent them from finding the one they need.

Steps to reproduce

1. Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon, login screen
2. Click the keyboard icon in the top right → More layouts…
3. Observe: a long scrollable list, no search field, entries like:

al plisi - Albanian (Plisi)
am phonetic - Armenian (phonetic)
ara azerty - Arabic (AZERTY)
ara buckwalter - Arabic (Buckwalter)
ara mac - Arabic (Macintosh)
af uz-olpc - Uzbek (Afghanistan, OLPC)
…

Why this matters

The login screen is the worst possible place for a 500-entry list: the #1 reason a user opens this menu is that the wrong layout is active and their password is being typed incorrectly (see Invalid password, please try again in screenshot 1 — exactly this situation). Making them scroll through 500 items under that pressure is UX-hostile.

Every comparable dialog (GNOME, KDE, macOS, Windows) has a live search field for layout selection.

Suggested improvements (any one would help)

1. Live search field above the list, filtering on layout code (de) and display name (German).
2. Short default list of common layouts + an "All layouts…" expander for the rest.
3. Top suggestions based on the system's installed locales.
4. Grouped/collapsible sections by language/region as a fallback.

(1) + (2) combined would be ideal: a small list of ~10 common layouts with a search field, full list behind an expander.

Happy to help test a patch.

Screenshots

(Screenshots will be attached as comments — they show: (1) the login screen with the keyboard menu open and Invalid password, please try again visible, (2) the More layouts… list with no search and ~500 entries, (3) further down the list showing entries like af uz-olpc - Uzbek (Afghanistan, OLPC) that are noise for virtually all users.)

[oxidworks]

[oxidworks]

Adding a bit of personal context: this was frustrating enough that I aborted the installation. The first few times I opened More layouts…, I genuinely thought the dialog was broken or still loading — I couldn't find my layout (German) anywhere near where I'd expect it, scrolled through dozens of Afghan/Albanian/Arabic variants, and eventually gave up and closed the session. Only on a later attempt, with more patience, did I realize the list actually contains ~500 entries and "German" is just buried somewhere far down.

A first-time user hitting this with the wrong keyboard layout active and no obvious way to change it will very reasonably conclude that Mint is broken. That's a bad first impression for what is otherwise a really polished distribution.