xvkbd(1)

📦 version 4.1, in fedora 43, fedora 44

okay bestie, welcome to the xvkbd(1) glow-up — it's a General Commands Manual, and it's giving virtual keyboard realness 💖

✨ NAME ✨

xvkbd — virtual keyboard for X window system 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so xvkbd is a virtual (graphical) keyboard program for X Window System 🎀, and the whole point is that it gives you a facility to enter characters onto other clients (that's other software, bestie) by clicking on a keyboard that's literally displayed on the screen 👑. This is a whole lifesaver for systems that don't have a hardware keyboard — think kiosk terminals or handheld devices 🦋. And as if that wasn't enough, this program also has a facility to send characters specified as the command line option to another client ✨.

The standard keyboard layout is based on the traditional US layout, but some other keyboard layout (peep "Screenshot") is also supported 🌈. The default window size may be too large for systems with small screen, but it can be configured to use smaller space (220x90 pixels, for example) 💅. For details, see also "Screenshot" and "How to Customize xvkbd" below, and resouce files in the distribution 🎀.

xvkbd version 2.1 and later support word completion, and xvkbd version 4.0 and later will now learns the used words for word completion, which may make it easier to enter long words with xvkbd 🧚.

IMPORTANT NOTE: when invoking xvkbd from display managers such as XDM, GDM, etc., always use xvkbd with -secure option or you will have serious security risk 😭. no cap. do not skip this one, i am begging.

🌍 Environment

xvkbd will work on X11R5 or X11R6 ✨. It is tested on redhat Linux and Solaris, and it will work also on most UNIX-like systems 💜.

This program uses Xaw (use of Xaw3d is recommended) and no special library is required 🎀.

🎮 Operation

⌨️ Input Keys

When xvkbd is started, the image of a keyboard will be displayed on the screen 👑. Clicking any key on the xvkbd window will send the character to the focused window as if the key had been actually typed with the hardware keyboard 💅.

If you want to input upper-case alphabets or other characters on the upper position on the keyboard, you should click the key after selecting Shift by clicking it, or click the key with mouse button 3 (maybe right button) or mouse button 4 🖱️. In the similar manner, if you want to input Controled characters, you should click the key after clicking Control, or click the key with mouse button 2 (maybe middle button) ✨. Alt and Meta can be used in the similar manner with Control, but there are no shortcuts with mouse buttons 🙈.

⚡ ``Quick Modifiers''

xvkbd 2.5 and later support another way to input characters with modifiers such as Shift, Control, AltGr, etc., which may be useful especially for machines with touch panels such as PDAs — we would call it "Quick Modifiers" 💅.

Quick Modifiers can be enabled/disabled by the ``Enable "Quick Modifiers?'' entry on the property panel ✨. If Quick Modifiers is enabled, it will be activated by pressing a key on the xvkbd window, move the pointer outside of the key, and then release the mouse button or equivalent 🦋.

The direction of the pointer motion will select the modifier:

  • up — Shift
  • right — AltGr
  • right-up — Shift AltGr
  • left — Control
  • left-up — Shift Control
  • down — Meta
  • left-down — Alt

🎯 Setting Input Focus

If you are using a window manager and clients where you can set input focus by clicking mouse button on the window (and you don't have to keep pointer in the window after that), you can simply set input focus in the normal way and then click keys on the xvkbd window — the character will be sent to the selected position 💖.

If you are using a window manager or clients where you must keep the pointer in the input field to input from the keyboard, or if the input focus is switched to the xvkbd window when you clicked on the key on the xvkbd window, you must make xvkbd to set input focus explicitly by clicking the Focus button on the xvkbd window and then click on the input field 👑. This input focus can be cleared by clicking Focus button with mouse button 3, or simply clicking Focus button twice ✨.

📖 Word Completion

Choosing ``Word Completion...'' in the main menu will popup the Word Completion panel 🎀.

When you entered characters by clicked keys on the xvkbd window as usual while the Word Completion panel open, words started with the characters will be listed in the panel, and you can enter the remaining characters of the selected word by clicking one of the words in the list 💅.

When ``Integrate Completion Panel?'' on the property panel is set on, completion panel will be displayed on the main window when required 🦋.

The dictionary (list of words) file is /usr/share/xvkbd/words.english by default, but it can be changed with Static Dictionary on the property panel 🌸.

In addition, xvkbd records the used words and those scores in $HOME/.xvkbd.words 💜.

Pressing the ``xvkbd'' logo on the main keyboard (placed near left-bottom corner in the default configuration) will popup the main menu 👑.

The menu contains following items:

  • About... — Show short description of this program.
  • Manual... — Launch manual page reader.
  • Keypad... — Open the Keypad panel.
  • Sun Function Keys... — Open the Sun Function Keys panel.
  • Dead Keys... — Open the Dead Keys panel which can be used to enter Latin characters with accent symbol in double stroke.
  • Word Completion... — Open the Word Completion panel.
  • Change Keyboard Layout... — Open a popup window to change the keyboard layout. In the default configuration, Default (US), Belgian, Danish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese (JIS-X-6002), Japanese (JIS-X-6004), Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss/German, United Kingdom and Latin-1 are available 🌈.
  • Edit Function Keys... — Open a popup window to edit string assigned to function keys. See also "Assigning Text to Function Keys".
  • Show Keypad? — Toggle show/hide of the keypad on the main window.
  • Show Function Keys? — Toggle show/hide of the function keys on the main window.
  • Property... — Popup the Property panel.
  • Connect to Remote Display... — Open a panel to specify the name of a remote display (in the meaning of the X Window System) to connect, so that following key events will be sent to windows on the remote display ✨.
  • Revert to Local Display — Disconnect from the remote display so that following key events will be sent to windows on the local display 💅.

🎛️ Property Panel

  • Enable "Quick Modifiers"? — Toggle enable/disable of the Quick Modifiers feature.
  • Lock Shift? — Toggle locking/momentary of Shift keys.
  • Lock AltGr? — Toggle locking/momentary of AltGr key.
  • Lock Control, Alt and Meta? — Toggle locking/momentary of Control, Alt and Meta keys.
  • Always on Top? — If this entry is set ON, xvkbd attempts to keep the xvkbd window always on the top of the display (i.e. not to be hidden by other windows) 👑. This feature is experimental, and care should be taken as this feature can cause problem in some situations 😭.
  • Behave as Toolbar Window? — xvkbd attempts to be a toolbar window when it is used with some kind of window managers such as Matchbox window manager.
  • Use XTEST Extension? — XTEST extension will be used if this entry is checked ✨. If this entry is set inactive, the X server does not support XTEST extension.
  • Jump Pointer? — If this entry is set ON, xvkbd will temporary jump the pointer to the focused window, if XTEST extension is to be used to simulate keyboard events 🖱️.
  • Key-Click Sound — Set on/off and duration of key-click sound 🎵.
  • Automatic Click — Set on/off of the automatic click feature and the delay before automatic click is activated. If this feature is set, xvkbd will work as if left mouse button is clicked when mouse pointer is moved on a button and stays long enough 👀. You may want to set Jump Pointer? to OFF to avoid auto-repeating.
  • Completion:
    • Static Dictionary — Set the filename to be used for word completion 📚. This setting take precedence over the xvkbd.dictFile resource and the -dict option. Default: /usr/share/xvkbd/words.english
    • Dynamic Dictionary Weight — This parameter controls "learning" of recently used words. When this value is set 0, xvkbd will not learn used words 🚫. With higher value setting, xvkbd will quickly learn the used words and effectively ignores frequency information in the Static Dictionary. Default: 1.
    • Insert Blank after Completion?" — If this button is set on, xvkbd will insert blank (' ') automatically after word completion if the next character is not blank nor punctuations ✨.
    • Integrate Completion Panel?" — If this button is set on, word completion panel will be inegrated at top of the main window and will be activated when required 💖.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

okay bestie, so on top of the general options you already know and love (like -display), xvkbd takes all of these. yes, all of them. grab a snack 🍓

  • -version — shows you the version info and dips. that's it, that's the whole job 👑
  • -xsendevent — makes xvkbd use XSendEvent() to fake keyboard events, exactly like the old xvkbd version 1.0 did. xvkbd 1.1 and up will try to use the XTEST extension instead by default. warning bestie: it is not unusual for apps to straight-up ignore keyboard events generated with -xsendevent, so do NOT use -xsendevent unless you genuinely have to. 🙈 if the X server doesn't support the XTEST extension, xvkbd will automatically switch to this mode anyway. resource xvkbd.xtest: false does the same thing.
  • -no-sync — normally xvkbd tries to sync up with the destination client step by step. that can get messy when the client (or the X server) is responding too slow 😭 in that situation, maybe -no-sync fixes your problem. resource xvkbd.noSync: true does the same thing.
  • -no-jump-pointer — stops xvkbd from jumping the pointer when it sends events. by default, xvkbd temporarily jumps the pointer to the focused window if input focus was set explicitly via the Focus button, and the XTEST extension is what's being used to simulate keyboard events. resource xvkbd.jumpPointer: false does the same thing.
  • -no-back-pointer — stops xvkbd from jumping the pointer back to where it started after the events have been sent. maybe useful when you're using xvkbd to move the pointer around. resource xvkbd.jumpPointerBack: false does the same thing.
  • -modal — makes the labels on the keys in the xvkbd window get set independently for each of the four shift states: not shifted, Shift, AltGr, and Shift-AltGr. super handy when you want your xvkbd window to be teeny tiny 🎀 see also "Customizing Keyboard Layout" and the resource files in the distribution. resource xvkbd.modalKeytop: true does the same thing.
  • -geometry [widthxheight][+xoff+yoff] — sets the window geometry (size and position). you can do stuff like -geometry 400x130 for the size, -geometry +100+100 for the position from the left/top edge of the screen, and -geometry 400x130+100+100 for both at once ✨ you can specify the position from the right/bottom edge by using - instead of +, but heads up: you have to take the size of the window border into account. (if you specify -geometry -0-0, the window will not fit in the screen 💀). this can also be set by the xvkbd.windowGeometry resource — and yes, note that it is not xvkbd.geometry.
  • -no-resize — disables resizing of the xvkbd window. resource xvkbd.resizable: false does the same thing.
  • -no-repeat — no auto-repeat, even if you hold a key down forever. if auto-repeat is enabled (which is the default), you can set the time before auto-repeat kicks in as xvkbd*Repeater.initialDelay: 600, and the repeat period as xvkbd*Repeater.minimumDelay: 100 (both of those are in milli-seconds, iykyk). resource xvkbd.autoRepeat: false does the same thing.
  • -no-functionkey — don't display function keys. resource xvkbd.functionkey: false does the same thing.
  • -no-keypad — don't display the keypad. resource xvkbd.keypad: false does the same thing.
  • -compact — don't display function keys nor the keypad. resource xvkbd.compact: true does the same thing.
  • -keypad — display only the keypad. this option gets ignored if -no-keypad or -compact is specified. resource xvkbd.keypadOnly: true does the same thing.
  • -text string — sends the string to the focused window (see also the -window option). if this option is specified, xvkbd will not open its window and will terminate soon after sending the string. the string can contain:
    • \r — Return
    • \t — Tab
    • \b — Backspace
    • \e — Escape
    • \d — Delete
    • \S — Shift (modifies the next character; please note that modifying with \S will be ignored in many cases. for example, a\Cb\ScD\CE will be interpreted as a, Control-b, c, Shift-D, and Control-Shift-E.) 🫶
    • \C — Control (modifies the next character)
    • \A — Alt (modifies the next character)
    • \M — Meta (modifies the next character)
    • \W — Super (modifies the next character)
    • \[keysym] — the keysym keysym (e.g., \[Left]), which will be processed in the similar matter with other general characters
    • \{keysym} — the keysym keysym (e.g., \{Left}), which will be processed in a more primitive matter and can also be used for modifier keys such as Control_L, Meta_L, etc.; also, \{+keysym} and \{+keysym} will simulate press and release of the key, respectively
    • \Ddigit — delay of digit * 100 ms
    • \xvalue — move mouse pointer (use "+" or "-" for relative motion)
    • \yvalue — move mouse pointer (use "+" or "-" for relative motion)
    • \mdigit — simulate a click of the specified mouse button
  • -file filename — sends the contents of the specified file to the focused window (see also the -window option). if - was specified as the filename, the string to be sent will be read from the standard input (stdin). if this option is specified, xvkbd will not open its window and will terminate soon after sending the string. 📄
  • -utf16 — when used with the -file option, makes xvkbd accept UTF16 characters in the file.
  • -delay value — puts value ms of delay for every character when sending characters with -text or -file. maybe useful when problems arise because characters are being entered too fast 🐢 resource xvkbd.textDelay: value does the same thing.
  • -window window — specify the ID (hexadecimal value led by 0x, or a decimal value), the name (instance name or class name) of the window, or the title of the window, to set input focus. it's possible to use the wildcard characters * and ? to match the window name or the window title. if this isn't specified, xvkbd will use the input focus under the control of the window manager — unless focus is specified explicitly via the Focus button. even if this option is specified, you can still set input focus to other windows using the Focus button, or clear the input focus. and if there are two or more windows with the name you specified, the window that was found first gets picked.
  • -widget widget-name — specify the name of the widget to set the input focus to. to use this feature, the client has to support the Editres protocol. in general this option gets used together with the -window option. if you want to set input focus to the widget foo.bar.zot, you can write zot, bar.zot or foo.bar.zot as the widget-name. to avoid confusion, the widget-name should match a single widget of the client. for example:
xvkbd -window xarchie -widget searchText -text "\Ca\Ckabc\r"

will enter the string abc into the "Search Term" field of an xarchie window. slay 💅

  • -remote-display display — specify the display (in the X Window System sense of the word) to connect to; see also Connect to Remote Display.... 🌈
  • -true-keypad — if this option is specified, xvkbd will attempt to use keysyms such as XK_KP_1 instead of XK_1. resource xvkbd.keypadKeysym: true does the same thing.
  • -dict filename — specify the default dictionary (list of words) file to use for word completion. the "Completion Dictionary" filename set on the Property panel takes precedence over this one. resource xvkbd.dictFile: filename does the same thing. see also "Making your own completion dictionary". 📚
  • -minimizable — makes the xvkbd window minimizable (iconifiable) even if there's no window manager in use. when this feature is enabled, a small triangle will be displayed at the left of the xvkbd main menu, and the xvkbd window gets minimized when the triangle is clicked. resource xvkbd.minimizable: true does the same thing.
  • -secure — disables invocation of external commands, including the user-assigned command and the online manual reader. connection to another display would also be disabled. this option may be useful when xvkbd is going to be run with some kind of privileges 🔒 resource xvkbd.secure: true does the same thing.
  • -nonexitable — disables termination of the xvkbd program. this option may be useful when xvkbd is to be run automatically for systems with no keyboards, and users should not be terminating the xvkbd. resource xvkbd.nonexitable: true does the same thing.
  • -xdm — same as -secure -nonexitable. when xvkbd is going to be run for the login screen, it's suggested that you use this option.
  • -modifiers modifiers — normally, xvkbd only activates modifiers (control, shift, etc.) while sending characters. if modifiers were specified with this option, the specified modifiers will be activated while the corresponding key on the xvkbd window is active. for example, you can specify -modifiers shift,control,meta,alt to apply this to those four modifiers. maybe useful when you're attempting to decorate mouse operations with the modifiers. please note that the modifiers will also be applied when you're attempting to click on the xvkbd window, which can prevent correct operation in some situations 😬 resource xvkbd.positiveModifiers: modifiers... does the same thing.
  • -debug — makes xvkbd output debug information. it also disables keyboard width adjustment, to help with adjusting key size when making a keyboard layout file. it also makes xvkbd accept the signals SIGINT and SIGQUIT, which are otherwise ignored 🐛
  • -version — outputs version information and exits. (yes, she's listed twice, we love a consistent queen 👑)

📸 SCREENSHOT 📸

Bestie, here are the screenshots of all the keyboard layouts xvkbd can serve. Literally eye candy. No cap.

💾 DOWNLOAD 💾

Get the latest, bestie. It's giving main character energy.

Latest Official Release

http://t-sato.in.coocan.jp/xvkbd/xvkbd-4.0.tar.gz

  • source of version 4.0 (2019-08-31)

previous release

http://t-sato.in.coocan.jp/xvkbd/xvkbd-3.9.tar.gz

xvkbd is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

🛠️ INSTALL 🛠️

✨ xmkmf ✨

  • untar the source in a directory, and move to the directory
  • If you wish to use genuine Xaw instead of Xaw3d, edit Imakefile and remove (or comment-out) #define XAW3D. When you are installing xvkbd (for example) in very old systems, you may also want to remove #define XTEST and #define I18N to disable XTEST and internationalization facility respectively.
  • Run: xmkmf; make install install.man

🌸 configure 🌸

Alternatively, maybe you can:

  • untar the source in a directory, and move to the directory
  • Run: ./configure; make; make install

🎀 CUSTOMIZATION 🎀

💖 How to Customize xvkbd 💖

Some degree of customization of xvkbd is possible by setting resources. Some resources are already described above, and resources to customizing keyboard layout are described below.

To set resources, you can:

  • put them in your $HOME/.Xdefaults file, or
  • load them via xrdb(1), or
  • set the filename to the $XENVIRONMENT environment variable, or
  • put them in application default directory as XVkbd-suffix and set resource xvkbd.customization: -suffix, or
  • put them in application default directory as XVkbd.

Here, application default directory can be either of:

  • directories specified with $XUSERFILESEACHPATH, $XAPPLRESDIR or else $HOME environment variable
  • system's application default directory specified with $XFILESEACHPATH environment variable, or else the directory specified when compiling the X (e.g., /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults)

When the application default file is to be stored in the system's application default directory, the file must contain #include "XVkbd-common" near top of the file.

xvkbd is distributed with some application default files, and they will be installed in the system's application default directory.

📏 Making Window Small 📏

Size (and position) of xvkbd window can be set by xvkbd.windowGeometry resource. When making window small, you may need to choose the smaller font, too.

xvkbd.windowGeometry: 220x90
xvkbd.compact: true
xvkbd*Font: 6x12

You may also want to set:

xvkbd.modalKeytop: true

to display only the labels for the current shift state, instead of trying to always display all of them in the small keytop.

See also XVkbd-small.ad in the xvkbd distribution.

🗑️ Removing Unwanted Keys 🗑️

Keys on xvkbd window can be removed by setting their width to 1. The resource name of the keys that start with a capital letter (and of the space key) is the same as the key itself, the others are of the form <row>,<col> (counting from zero).

To remove Compose key and make Shift key larger, you can write:

xvkbd*Multi_key.width: 1
xvkbd*Shift_R.width: 75

To remove right Alt and Meta key, you can write:

xvkbd*Alt_R.width: 1
xvkbd*Meta_R.width: 1

🎨 Customizing Keyboard Layout 🎨

Layout of keys on the xvkbd window can be customized with following resources:

  • xvkbd.NormalKeys — list of keys available when neither of Shift and AltGr are selected
  • xvkbd.ShiftKeys — list of keys available when Shift is selected
  • xvkbd.AltgrKeys — list of keys available when AltGr is selected
  • xvkbd.ShiftAltgrKeys — list of keys available when both AltGr and Shift are selected
  • xvkbd.KeyLabels — list of labels displayed on the keys
  • xvkbd.NormalKeyLabels — list of labels displayed on the keys when neither of Shift and AltGr are selected.
  • xvkbd.ShiftKeyLabels — list of labels displayed on the keys when Shift is selected
  • xvkbd.AltgrKeyLabels — list of labels displayed on the keys when AltGr is selected
  • xvkbd.ShiftAltgrKeyLabels — list of labels displayed on the keys when both AltGr and Shift are selected

Four resources to set labels on the keys (xvkbd.NormalKeyLabels, xvkbd.ShiftKeyLabels, xvkbd.AltgrKeyLabels and xvkbd.ShiftAltgrKeyLabels) will be used instead of xvkbd.KeyLabels when xvkbd.modalKeytop resource is set true.

In all of those resources, each keys are separated by spaces, and rows of keys are terminated with \n\ (note that \n must have space before it). Please refer XVkbd-german.ad and XVkbd-latin1.ad in the xvkbd distribution for more about these resources.

XVkbd-german and XVkbd-latin1 will be installed in the system's application default directory, and setting the resource xvkbd.customization: -german will make xvkbd to use the German layout. For another method to activate those settings, please refer "How to Customize xvkbd" above.

📝 Assigning Text to Function Keys 📝

Text can be assigned to each function keys (and, actually, to most other keys). If text is assigned to the function key, clicking on the key will send the assigned text instead of the function key itself. When pointer is on a key where text is assigned, the text will be displayed near the key.

The setting will be read from a text file which contains text for each function keys as:

F1 text for F1
F2 text for F2
s:F1 text for Shift-F1
c:F1 text for Control-F1
m:F1 text for Meta-F1
a:F1 text for Alt-F1
...

s:, c:, m: and a: before the keys name indicates four modifiers (Shift, Control, Meta and Alt) respectively.

If the first character of the assigned string is !, the string will be used as command to be executed when the key is clicked. To assign string starting with ! or \, put \ before the string.

The file is $HOME/.xvkbd in default, and it can be changed by setting the filename with xvkbd.keyFile resource.

For F1 to F12 with or without Shift modifier, it is possible to edit the assigned string on a panel popped up via "Edit Function Keys..." in the main menu.

📋 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATIONS 📋

📝 Notes 📝

  • On XFree86, resolution switch with Ctrl + Alt + Keypad-Plus and Ctrl + Alt + Keypad-Minus may be simulated. However, Ctrl + Alt + Backspace will not be simulated.
  • Shift is used to decide key to be sent and it will not used to set modifier bit when sending the event. You can use xev command to check what is actually sent.
  • If Alt or Meta is not defined as modifier, the key can't be used as modifier. You can use xmodmap -pm to check how modifiers are defined.
  • Num Lock (and maybe other modifiers) on the physical keyboard may not work correctly when xvkbd is in use.

🔗 Additional Informations 🔗

👑 AUTHOR 👑

xvkbd was written by Tom Sato, and it is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 or any later version.

Please send any feedback (such as bug reports, requests or comments) to Tom Sato <VEF00200@nifty.com>.

The latest version of this software and more information about it may be available at http://t-sato.in.coocan.jp/xvkbd/.

That's the whole xvkbd(1) page, bestie! This one is from xvkbd(1), version 4.0, dated 2019-09-01. Now go slay some keyboard shortcuts 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from