XkbInd program (X Keyboard Extension Indicator) is a minimal indicator of keyboard layout (XKB group) for the X Window System; it outputs information about current keyboard layout attached to each top-level window through their captions via prefixes to original title strings. It also allows to simulate an independent keyboard layout for each handled window and it works with most of the window managers, including TWM, MWM and FVWM.

XkbInd simulates an independent keyboard layout for each handled top-level window. XkbInd is very light-weighted and uses less than 150 kb of virtual memory (excluding "shared" of course). XkbInd doesn't grab entries in default color pallet, doesn't perform any drawing operations itself, but relies wholly to the window manager. XkbInd doesn't occupy any area on the screen, and outputs all relevant information to window titles. XkbInd can be configured to ignore (or accept) particular windows or applications. This feature is based on examination of WM_CLASS property. It is possible to use shell type wildcards in "accept" and "ignore" lists. XkbInd is "true" XKB program, i.e. all interactions with X-server are carried out through the XKB extension protocol. XkbInd keeps all information about current keyboard layout of each handled window at server side in form of window properties unlike most of the other similar programs which keep this data in local storage. And the last, XkbInd does only what it says--it is an indicator. Nothing more.

Firstly, you should download and unpack distribution archive: tar xvzf xkbind-<version>.tar.gz To compile and install XkbInd you should perform the following: cd xkbind-<version> ./configure make make install For details see INSTALL file.

The program is highly configurable; it accepts many options most of which can be specified either on the command line, in the user's or system-wide configuration files. All these files use standard X resources notation. For details see the manual page.

The best place to run XkbInd is from ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc. Add the line "xkbind" to one of these files just before "exec" of window manager.

E-mail: smersh@users.sourceforge.net