[dwm] xxkb, per window keyboard layout

From: Stanimir Dragiev <stanio_AT_cs.tu-berlin.de>
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:47:31 +0200

Hello to all on the list.

I used to be a wmii user for nearly 2 years on one computer of mine. For
about the same time I used dwm under Solaris on other computer (cos I
haven't manage to get wmii compiled there :o| , I considered dwm kind of
fallback). Until about 2 months ago, when I've got some, in my opinion,
transcendent :o) behaviour in wmii which I haven't found motivation to
investigate the cause for. This was the occasion to think about converting
to dwm at home too. I realized
- I don't use many features of wmii
- run-time reconfigurability is a nice to have, but not a real limitation
  when
        - the Xsession does not hang on the WM and
        - the tag rules are reasonable
        - make && make install && dwm does not take too long
- dwm has significantly better response time when the machine is slow
- ...
  
So I've done the single logical thing: I now use dwm everywhere I have
impact on the WM choice.

All I want to say: I am nearly perfectly happy with dwm! Thanks a lot to
all contributors!

The *only* problem is: A big deal of the things I type is Cyrillic, so I
need to use at least 2 keyboard layouts. Usually, the windows in which I
type Cyrillic and the ones I type Latin, are different. Xxkb is exactly
about this: remembering the keyboard layout for each window. This means for
example:
- default keyboard layout is DEF (alternative is ALT)
- start terminal A
- start terminal B
- focus window A
- layout in window A is DEF
- change layout to ALT
- layout in window A is ALT
- focus window B
- layout in window B is DEF
- focus window A
- layout in window A is ALT (preserved after focus switch)
  
Unfortunately, this does not work in dwm. This problem was reported once,
here:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.window-managers.dwm/826 ,

but I didn't found any follow-ups. I found the same problem reported for
xmonad (which I also tried out and verified) here:

http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/xmonad/2008-April/005439.html .

There, some more background is given on the subject (like xxkb relying on
XReparentWindow ...). The issue appears to be closed for xmonad being xxkb
issue.

My questions:

- Is there a way to workaround this?
- Is there a quick "fix", better said hack, in dwm to allow xxkb work as
  expected? A hint where I should look in the code?
- Does anybody know alternative tool or setting to do the job in
  dwm-compliant manner ?

Thank you in advance for your suggestions and hints!

-- 
 cheers
 stanio_
Received on Sun Aug 10 2008 - 17:47:31 UTC

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