wvkbd(1)

wvkbd — on-screen virtual keyboard, bestie edition 💅

okay so this is the wvkbd(1) manual page: it's the on-screen virtual keyboard for wayland compositors using wlroots, and it's honestly lowkey iconic. ✨

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🎀 NAME 🎀

wvkbd — on-screen virtual keyboard for wayland compositors using wlroots.

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

wvkbd-mobintl [OPTIONS]... wvkbd-deskintl [OPTIONS]...

NOTE: Your binary may have a different suffix depending on which layout you compiled.

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

This project is aiming to deliver a minimal but practically usable implementation of a wlroots on-screen keyboard, written in legible C. It's only a keyboard — not a feedback buzzer, not an led blinker, and not anything that requires more than what's needed to input text quickly. The end product should be a static codebase that can be patched to add new features. 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -D — enable debug mode.
• -o — print pressed keys to standard output.
• -O — print intersected keys to standard output.
• -l layers — comma separated list of layers in vertical/portrait mode.
• --landscape-layers layers — comma separated list of layers used in horizontal/landscape mode.
• --list-layers — prints a list of all available layers.
• -H pixels — Height of the keyboard in pixels, for vertical/portrait mode.
• -L pixels — Height of the keyboard in pixels, for horizontal/landscape mode.
• --fn font — set font and size (e.g. DejaVu Sans 20).
• --hidden — Start hidden (send SIGUSR2 to show).
• --non-exclusive — Allow keyboard to overlap existing windows, do not request an exclusive zone from the compositor.
• --alpha int — Set alpha value (i.e. transparency) for all colors [0-255].
• --bg rrggbb|aa — Set color of background.
• --fg rrggbb|aa — Set color of keys.
• --fg-sp rrggbb|aa — Set color of special keys.
• --press rrggbb|aa — Set color of pressed keys.
• --press-sp rrggbb|aa — Set color of pressed special keys.
• --swipe rrggbb|aa — Set color of swiped keys.
• --swipe-sp rrggbb|aa — Set color of swiped special keys.
• --text rrggbb|aa — Set color text on keys.
• --text-sp rrggbb|aa — Set color text on special keys.
• --version — Print version information.
• -h, --help — Print usage help.

🦋 SIGNALS 🦋

You can send signals to wvkbd to hide/show it (e.g. using kill(1) with -s):

• SIGUSR1 — Hide the keyboard.
• SIGUSR2 — Show the keyboard.
• SIGRTMIN — Toggle visibility.

🍓 COMPOSE BUTTON 🍓

The default mobile international layout features a Compose button (Cmp) which, when combined with another key, opens up a layout that offers variants for that key. This is similar to functionality that other keyboards implemented using a long press (wvkbd has no such notion, holding a key will repeat it like on a physical keyboard).

For example, press Cmp + a to access variants with diacritics like á,à,â,ä, etc..

Most layouts also feature the following that are less obvious:

• Press Cmp and . to access more punctuation.
• Press Cmp and - or , to access 'mathematical' symbols (+,-,=,etc).
• Press Cmp and ' or 0 or 9 to access more brackets and quotes.
• Press Cmp and q to access emojis.

Last, but not least, pressing Cmp + space or Cmp + ⌨ or Cmp + Abc opens up an index that allows you to immediately jump to any layout by name, even layouts not explicitly added to your layers on startup.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Created by John Sullivan <jsullivan@csumb.edu>, maintained by the Sxmo project <https://sxmo.org> in collaboration with other open source contributors. For more information about wvkbd development, see <https://git.sr.ht/~proycon/wvkbd> or <https://github.com/jjsullivan5196/wvkbd>.

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That's the whole wvkbd(1) glow-up, bestie. Filed under General Commands Manual, dated 2026-02-06, and it ate. 💜