scf37/layout-switcher

What is this

Script that runs in background allowng change of keyboard layout by Ctrl+Shift the right way - with lots of tiny but important details implemented on Windows but missing on Linux.

There are two implementations:

• layout_switcher.sh for generic Linux distributions utilizing xkb-switch
• layout_switcher_ubuntu20_gnome.sh - specific for gnome and the only option for Ubuntu 20 where xkb-switch does not work

Prerequisites

Requres pynput python lib to be installed

Run: pip install --user pynput

Components

xkb-switch

C++ application allowing to switch Keyboard Layout in Ubuntu Linux Compiled form GitHub repo https://github.com/ierton/xkb-switch All credits goes to J. Bromley, S. Mironov, Alexei Rad'kov

Run 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; xkb-switch -h' for additional info

layout_switcher.py

Simple python script waiting for Ctrl+Shift key combination to be pressed and then released on the keyboard. Specific combination can be changed by editing 'key_combinations' list inside layout_switcher.py Scripts receive 2 sh commands as command line arguments and execute them one after another on every Ctrl+Shift release

Created based on this guide https://nitratine.net/blog/post/how-to-make-hotkeys-in-python/

layout_switcher.sh

Simple bash script which joins all parts together and make it work.

layout_switcher_ubuntu20_gnome.sh

Simple bash script that uses gdbus to switch layouts

Usage (for xkb-switch version)

Put layout_switcher.py and xkb-switch in same folder Run: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; xkb-switch -l You should see all available keyboard layouts. E.g. us, ru

Try to switch between to layouts using xkb-switch Run: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; xkb-switch -s us Run: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; xkb-switch -s ru

If xkb-switch works as expected, you can try layout_switcher.sh Run layout_switcher.sh and try to switch layout by Ctrl+Shift

Note: If you have layouts different from us/ru, layout_switcher.sh need to be edited to update layouts as necessary.

Script layout_switcher.sh can be added to /etc/profile to start on system boot.

Usage (without xkb-switch, gnome specific)

Just run layout_switcher_ubuntu20_gnome.sh

Test

Tested with Python 3.8.10 Tested in Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon, Ubuntu 18.0.4, Ubuntu 20.0.4 (w/o xkb-switch)