# 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 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.
## Quick Guide
xkeyboard-config is available here:
http://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
Patches are always welcome, and may be sent to either
<xorg-devel@lists.x.org> or <wayland-devel@lists.freedesktop.org>
+or through github.
Bugs are also welcome, and may be reported either at
Bugzilla https://bugs.freedesktop.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=libxkbcommon
projects / platform / upstream / libxkbcommon.git / blobdiff