# libxkbcommon
-xkbcommon is a keymap compiler and support library which processes a
-reduced subset of keymaps as defined by the XKB specification. Primarily,
-a keymap is created from a set of Rules/Model/Layout/Variant/Options names,
-processed through an XKB ruleset, and compiled into a struct xkb_keymap,
-which is the base type for all xkbcommon operations.
-
-From an xkb_keymap, an xkb_state object is created which holds the current
-state of all modifiers, groups, LEDs, etc, relating to that keymap. All
-key events must be fed into the xkb_state object using xkb_state_update_key().
-Once this is done, the xkb_state object will be properly updated, and the
-keysyms to use can be obtained with xkb_state_key_get_syms().
-
-libxkbcommon does not distribute a dataset itself, other than for testing
-purposes. The most common dataset is xkeyboard-config, as used by all
-current distributions for their X11 XKB data. More information on
-xkeyboard-config is available here:
- http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/XKeyboardConfig
+libxkbcommon is a keyboard keymap compiler and support library which
+processes a reduced subset of keymaps as defined by the XKB (X Keyboard
+Extension) specification. It also contains a module for handling Compose
+and dead keys and a separate library for listing available keyboard layouts.
## Quick Guide
See [Quick Guide](doc/quick-guide.md).
+## Building
+
+libxkbcommon is built with [Meson](http://mesonbuild.com/):
+
+ meson setup build
+ ninja -C build
+ ninja -C build test # Run the tests.
+
+To build for use with Wayland, you can disable X11 support while still
+using the X11 keyboard configuration resource files thusly:
+
+ meson setup build \
+ -Denable-x11=false \
+ -Dxkb-config-root=/usr/share/X11/xkb \
+ -Dx-locale-root=/usr/share/X11/locale
+ ninja -C build
+
## API
-While xkbcommon's API is somewhat derived from the classic XKB API as found
+While libxkbcommon's API is somewhat derived from the classic XKB API as found
in X11/extensions/XKB.h and friends, it has been substantially reworked to
-expose fewer internal details to clients. The supported API is available
-in the xkbcommon/xkbcommon-*.h files. Additional support is provided for
-X11 (XCB) clients, in the xkbcommon-x11 library, xkbcommon/xkbcommon-x11.h.
+expose fewer internal details to clients.
+
+See the [API Documentation](https://xkbcommon.org/doc/current/modules.html).
+
+## Dataset
+
+libxkbcommon does not distribute a keymap dataset itself, other than for
+testing purposes. The most common dataset is xkeyboard-config, which is used
+by all current distributions for their X11 XKB data. More information on
+xkeyboard-config is available here:
+ https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/XKeyboardConfig
+
+The dataset for Compose is distributed in libX11, as part of the X locale
+data.
## Relation to X11
-Relative to the XKB 1.1 specification implemented in current X servers,
-xkbcommon has removed support for some parts of the specification which
-introduced unnecessary complications. Many of these removals were in fact
-not implemented, or half-implemented at best, as well as being totally
-unused in the standard dataset.
-
-Notable removals:
-- geometry support
- + there were very few geometry definitions available, and while
- xkbcommon was responsible for parsing this insanely complex format,
- it never actually did anything with it
- + hopefully someone will develop a companion library which supports
- keyboard geometries in a more useful format
-- KcCGST (keycodes/compat/geometry/symbols/types) API
- + use RMLVO instead; KcCGST is now an implementation detail
- + including pre-defined keymap files
-- XKM support
- + may come in an optional X11 support/compatibility library
-- around half of the interpret actions
- + pointer device, message and redirect actions in particular
-- non-virtual modifiers
- + core and virtual modifiers have been collapsed into the same
- namespace, with a 'significant' flag that largely parallels the
- core/virtual split
-- radio groups
- + completely unused in current keymaps, never fully implemented
-- overlays
- + almost completely unused in current keymaps
-- key behaviors
- + used to implement radio groups and overlays, and to deal with things
- like keys that physically lock; unused in current keymaps
-- indicator behaviours such as LED-controls-key
- + the only supported LED behaviour is key-controls-LED; again this
- was never really used in current keymaps
-
-Notable additions:
-- 32-bit keycodes
-- extended number of modifiers
-- extended number of groups
-- multiple keysyms per level
- + this requires incompatible dataset changes, such that X11 would
- not be able to parse these
+See [Compatibility](doc/compat.md) notes.
## Development
An extremely rudimentary homepage can be found at
- http://xkbcommon.org
+ https://xkbcommon.org
xkbcommon is maintained in git at
https://github.com/xkbcommon/libxkbcommon
Patches are always welcome, and may be sent to either
<xorg-devel@lists.x.org> or <wayland-devel@lists.freedesktop.org>
+or in a [GitHub](https://github.com/xkbcommon/libxkbcommon) pull request.
-Bugs are also welcome, and may be reported either at
- Bugzilla https://bugs.freedesktop.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=libxkbcommon
-or
- Github https://github.com/xkbcommon/libxkbcommon/issues
+Bug reports (and usage questions) are also welcome, and may be filed at
+[GitHub](https://github.com/xkbcommon/libxkbcommon/issues).
The maintainers are
- Daniel Stone <daniel@fooishbar.org>
-- Ran Benita <ran234@gmail.com>
+- Ran Benita <ran@unusedvar.com>
## Credits