XkbGetNamedGeometry(3)

🌸 NAME 🌸

Okay bestie, this is the XkbGetNamedGeometry(3) page from XKB FUNCTIONS — and it’s literally about loading a keyboard geometry description from this database by name. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Status XkbGetNamedGeometry (Display *dpy, XkbDescPtr xkb, Atom name);

🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• dpy — connection to the X server
• xkb — keyboard description into which the geometry should be loaded
• name — name of the geometry to be loaded

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

It is also possible to load a keyboard geometry by name. The X server maintains a database of keyboard components (see below).

XkbGetNamedGeometry can return BadName if the name cannot be found.

The X server maintains a database of keyboard components, identified by component type. The database contains all the information necessary to build a complete keyboard description for a particular device, as well as to assemble partial descriptions. Table 1 identifies the component types and the type of information they contain.

⭐ Table 1 Server Database Keyboard Components ⭐

• Keymap
  • Component Primary Contents: Complete keyboard description; Normally assembled using a complete component from each of the other types
  • May also contain: (nothing listed in this row)
• Keycodes
  • Component Primary Contents: Symbolic name for each key; Minimum and maximum legal keycodes
  • May also contain: Aliases for some keys; Symbolic names for indicators; Description of indicators physically present
• Types
  • Component Primary Contents: Key types
  • May also contain: Real modifier bindings and symbolic names for some virtual modifiers
• Compatibility
  • Component Primary Contents: Rules used to assign actions to keysyms
  • May also contain: Maps for some indicators; Real modifier bindings and symbolic names for some virtual modifiers
• Symbols
  • Component Primary Contents: Symbol mapping for keyboard keys; Modifier mapping; Symbolic names for groups
  • May also contain: Explicit actions and behaviors for some keys; Real modifier bindings and symbolic names for some virtual modifiers
• Geometry
  • Component Primary Contents: Layout of the keyboard
  • May also contain: Aliases for some keys; overrides keycodes component aliases; Symbolic names for some indicators; Description of indicators physically present

While a keymap is a database entry for a complete keyboard description, and therefore logically different from the individual component database entries, the rules for processing keymap entries are identical to those for the individual components. In the discussion that follows, the term component is used to refer to either individual components or a keymap.

There may be multiple entries for each of the component types. An entry may be either complete or partial. Partial entries describe only a piece of the corresponding keyboard component and are designed to be combined with other entries of the same type to form a complete entry.

For example, a partial symbols map might describe the differences between a common ASCII keyboard and some national layout. Such a partial map is not useful on its own because it does not include those symbols that are the same on both the ASCII and national layouts (such as function keys). On the other hand, this partial map can be used to configure any ASCII keyboard to use a national layout.

When a keyboard description is built, the components are processed in the order in which they appear in Table 1; later definitions override earlier ones.

💀 DIAGNOSTICS 💀

• BadName — A font or color of the specified name does not exist.

Bestie, that’s the exact diagnostic text — yes, it says “font or color,” and we are simply passing that along. 🙈

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Bye bestie!! 🫶 The footer says X Version 11 and libX11 1.8.14, and there’s no separate date listed there — so that’s the source/version sign-off vibe. 🌈👑