Keyboard switch and indicator Xrus (Version 1.13.0) =================================================== Program description ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The main purpose of this program is to switch keyboard mode for different layouts, for example latin and russian layouts (RUS/LAT). It is possible to tune the program to use any two layouts, it is needed just to have proper modmap loaded. To compile the program it is recommanded to have Motif library. You can also build it with Xaw, Lesstif and without widget library, but in the last case you lose some GUI functionality. The method of the program operation is very simple - it just gets all keyboard events and when a particular keyboard combination is pressed it switches keyboard layout by exchanging columns 1,2 and 3,4 of keyboard map. If the keyboard maps has more than 4 columns, it exchanges two halves of the keyboard map. By default, Xrus uses Shift_L+Shift_R combination for switching. You can tune it to use any combination. Also, Xrus switch the keyboard when you press the button (icon) with mouse. You can specify keys for non-triggering switch too. As side effect of getting all keyboard events, Xrus serves as autolock also. For this to actually work, it gets mouse events also. When timeout expires, it launches a locker. How to start Xrus ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For Xrus to work, you should have a keyboard map with four columns and with 8-bit characters. You can load the keyboard map in different ways: before starting xrus, by giving the name of file with keyboard map on the command line of xrus or by setting X property `Xrus*xmodmap' to the name for that file. Usually you just place these commands in .xinitrc: xrusmodmap /usr/share/xruskb/jcuken-cyr.xmm xrus OR xrus jcuken-cyr OR just `xrus', if you have set somewhere in properties: Xrus*xmodmap: jcuken-cyr Xrus first looks for the keymap in current directory, then in $prefix/share/xruskb, then appends .xmm and looks again in the directory. Therefore, it is possible to specify only key map name if it is installed in proper directory, e.g. `xrus jcuken-cyr'. If you don't have proper localization and jcuken-cyr does not work, try jcuken-koi8 or keyboard map with other encoding. The keyboard map should have four columns, the first two are usually contain plain latin letters, the two next contain national letters (e.g. russian). It is recommended to place Xrus.ad to system .../app-defaults with the name `Xrus'. It is not required, but if you will to change some resources it is convinient to have a file with defaults and comments. Don't forget to delete or replace the file if you had an old version installed. Own resources of Xrus ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Name Type Default Corresponding option -------------- ----------- ----------- -------------------- *autolock boolean false -autolock *locker string xlock -locker *timeout int 30 -timeout *useBell boolean false -bell,+bell *xmodmap string "" *switchKeys string Shift_L+Shift_R none *toLatKeys string "" none *toRusKeys string "" none *switchForOneKeys string "" none *led int 0 -led *altMaps string "" none *icon boolean true -icon,+icon *adjustModeButtons boolean true none *alwaysOnTop boolean false none *alwaysMapped boolean true none *capsLockEmu boolean false none *capsLockLed int 0 none *recheckTime int 1500 none *noFork boolean false -nofork *wMaker boolean false -wmaker *wmIcon boolean false -wmicon *xmodmapProgram string BINDIR/xrusmodmap *title0 string xrus:LAT none *title1 string xrus:RUS none *perWindow boolean false -perwindow *titlePerWindow0 string (LAT) none *titlePerWindow1 string (RUS) none *occupyAllDesks boolean true none *keyLog string "" -keylog timeout is measured in minutes. The option -bell turns on the bell when switching, +bell turns it off. switchKeys, toLatkeys and toRusKeys controls the keyboard combinations for switching and have format: ++..., where Key - standard X key name from keysymdef.h without prefix XK_. *switchForOneKeys sets key combination for changing mode for one next key. The syntax is the same as in switchKeys. -led defines the number of keyboard led for keyboard mode indication. 0 means none. *altMaps defines a list of file names with alternative keyboard maps. If you want to use it, define also resources *altmapX.labelString, where X - the number of file in *altMaps starting with 0. If you have compiled Xrus with Xaw, use resources *altmapX.label instead. The strings will be shown in menu then. *icon and -+icon determine whether show the icon (button) on the screen. If *adjustModeButtons is True, then the icon size is the same in both states. If *alwaysOnTop is True, then the icon will be floating over other windows. If *alwaysMapped is True, then Xrus will try to map the icon when window manager tries to unmap it. (it seems not to work with fvwm, but works with mwm/dtwm) When '*capsLockEmu: true' Xrus emulates the effect of CapsLock CapsLock is removed from the list of modifiers. *capsLockLed sets the number of keyboard led to use for CapsLock indication. It is used only when '*capsLockEmu: true'. *recheckTime sets time interval in milliseconds between window mapping and rechecking of event mask of the main application. This is useful when some application first asks for an event and then withdraws its request, expecting event propagation to work. This situation is quite rare, and X does not provide an event on change of event mask. *noFork disables fork to background on startup. *wMaker (and option -wmaker) selects display in appicon of Window Maker window manager. *wmIcon selects display in window manager's icon for xrus. In this case you won't be able to click on xrus' icon to switch or call menu, because window managers usually trap clicks to their icons. *xmodmapProgram specifies program to use for keyboard map loading. *title0 and *title1 set icon name for window manager in primary and secondary mode accordingly. *perWindow turns on saving keyboard state for each top level window and changing it on focus change. *titlePerWindow0 and *titlePerWindow1 specify strings to be appended to each window title in per-window mode. *occupyAllDesks makes xrus to make icon sticky. Works for some window manager only. -keylog specifies file name for key press logging. Besides xrus' own resources, there are a number of resources of standard widgets from Morif or Xaw libraries. In particular, using these resources it is possible to change mode indication or put an image instead of text strings (Motif only). See Xrus.ad for description of commonly used resources. All resources are documented in Motif or Xaw descriptions. Dynamic parameters change ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When pressing the icon with third (right) mouse button, a popup menu is shown. From there, you can lock screen, go to properties sheet or to terminate the program. From the properties sheet you can save the properties to "~/.xrus". Virtual Window Managers (VWM) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When using VWM, it is useful to stick the icon to screen. You can do it by tweeking VWM resources. Xrus can try to map itself back when VWM unmaps it (when *alwaysMapped: true) It works with mwm/dtwm, but does not with fvwm. It seems fvwm ignores MapRequestEvent. Problems with xlock ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you started xlock when being in alternate keyboard mode, you can have troubles with typing your password. To avoid this situation, you can use one of these methods: 1. Always launch xlock from xrus. 2. Allocate some key in keyboard map to serve as Mod2. Newer X servers require Mode_switch to be present in keyboard map. 3. Replace xlock with script which loads proper latin map and then launches original xlock. Problems with some other programs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ xv - loads keyboard map only once when starting (ignores map change). scoterm - tries to emulate scan-codes, but can't for 8-bit letters. You can try these resources: scoterm*keyboard: usa scoterm*charset: iso8859 scoterm*scancodesOn: false Some programs may expect event propagation to work precicely, which cannot be achieved absolutely with Xrus. If keyboard or mouse work unusually with some application when Xrus is started before the application, try to increase *recheckTime resource, but the default value should be enough. Where is the last version? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ftp://ftp.yars.free.net/pub/software/unix/X11/xruskb-A.B.C.tar.gz ftp://ftp.relcom.ru/pub/x11/cyrillic/xruskb-A.B.C.tar.gz Packages of Xrus for Solaris, created by Dmitri Antipov : ftp://ftp.elvis.ru/pub/sun/Solaris/ SPARC ftp://ftp.elvis.ru/pub/sun/Solaris/x86/ Intel OR http://ftp.elvis.ru/ftp/pub/sun/Solaris/ http://ftp.elvis.ru/ftp/pub/sun/Solaris/x86/ Widget tree (for Motif-version) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ApplicationShell(xrus) | +-XmForm(form) | +-XmPushButton(modeButton0) +-XmPushButton(modeButton1) XmMenuShell() | +-XmRowColumn(menu) | +-XmPushButton(lock) +-XmPushButton(props) +-XmCascadeButton(altmap) {not always created} +-XmPushButton(exit) XmMenuShell() | +-XmRowColumn(altmap_menu) | +-XmPushButton(altmap0) ... +-XmPushButton(altmapN) XmDialogShell(props) | +-XmForm(form) | +-XmFrame(frame1) | | | +-XmForm(form1) | | | +-XmToggleButton(allow_locker) | +-XmScale(autolock_delay) | +-XmLabel(locker_label) | +-XmTextField(locker) | +-XmPushButton(locker_test) | +-XmPushButton(locker_def) | +-XmFrame(frame2) | | | +-XmForm(form2) | | | +-XmToggleButton(use_bell) | +-XmLabel(switch_keys_label) | +-XmTextField(switch_keys) | +-XmLabel(to_lat_keys_label) | +-XmTextField(to_lat_leys) | +-XmLabel(to_rus_keys_label) | +-XmTextField(to_rus_keys) | +-XmPushButton(switch_keys_def) | +-XmForm(form4) | +-XmPushButton(ok) +-XmPushButton(cancel) +-XmPushButton(apply) +-XmPushButton(save) Author ~~~~~~ Alexander V. Lukyanov e-mail: lav@yars.free.net paper-mail: Alexander V. Lukyanov, Aviatorov st. 80-45, Yaroslavl 150051, Russia You are allowed to redistribute or modify the program according to GNU General Public Licence (See COPYING). The program is distributed in the hope it will be useful, but without any warranty.