g3kb-switch

This is a CLI keyboard layout switcher for Gnome 3 and 4x. It is not based on the X interface but rather implements direct D-Bus messaging with the Gnome Shell.

Installation

Prerequisites

Build requires glib-2.0, so you need to install the corresponding development package.

In Ubuntu.

$ sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev

In Fedora / RHEL / CentOS.

$ sudo dnf install glib2-devel

In Gentoo.

$ sudo emerge -av dev-libs/glib

Commands may differ in other Linux distributions.

Gnome 41 and newer

Build and install the switcher.

$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ sudo make install

In Gnome 41 and newer, the switcher will only work with G3kbSwitch Gnome Shell extension, because method org.gnome.Shell.Eval which was used in the original implementation of the switcher is now disabled for security reasons.

Build and install the extension.

$ cd ../extension
$ make install  # no sudo required!

Restart Gnome Shell for changes to take effect.

It is wise to make sure that the extension is enabled and works correctly. To enable the extension, use program gnome-extensions-app or command-line program gnome-extensions.

$ gnome-extensions enable g3kb-switch@g3kb-switch.org
$ gnome-extensions info g3kb-switch@g3kb-switch.org
g3kb-switch@g3kb-switch.org
  Name: G3kbSwitch
  Description: G3kbSwitch helper
  Path: /home/lyokha/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/g3kb-switch@g3kb-switch.org
  URL: https://github.com/lyokha/g3kb-switch
  Version: 1
  State: ENABLED

A small smoke-test of the extension.

$ gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/g3kbswitch/G3kbSwitch --method org.g3kbswitch.G3kbSwitch.List
(true, '[{"key":"0","value":"ru"},{"key":"1","value":"us"}]')
$ gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/g3kbswitch/G3kbSwitch --method org.g3kbswitch.G3kbSwitch.Get
(true, '1')
$ gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/g3kbswitch/G3kbSwitch --method org.g3kbswitch.G3kbSwitch.Set 1
(true, '')

Older versions of Gnome (3.x and 40)

Older versions of Gnome Shell expose method org.gnome.Shell.Eval which means that the switcher can be built to work with this method rather than using the extension. In this case, the cmake configuration step requires one extra option.

Build and install the switcher.

$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake -DG3KBSWITCH_WITH_GNOME_SHELL_EXTENSION=OFF ..
$ make
$ sudo make install

Usage

Usage: g3kb-switch [-p]      Show the current layout group
       g3kb-switch -l        Show available layout groups
       g3kb-switch -n        Switch to the next layout group
       g3kb-switch -s ARG    Switch to layout group ARG
       g3kb-switch -h        Show this message and exit
       g3kb-switch -v        Show the program version and exit

Integration with vim-xkbswitch

Basically, put in .vimrc lines

let g:XkbSwitchEnabled = 1
let g:XkbSwitchLib = '/usr/local/lib64/libg3kbswitch.so'

Variable g:XkbSwitchLib must contain the actual path to the installed library. The path can be found with pkg-config.

$ pkg-config g3kb-switch --variable libpath
/usr/local/lib64/libg3kbswitch.so

Notice that setting this variable is optional because vim-xkbswitch tries its best to autodetect the path.

See details about configuration rules for vim-xkbswitch here.