Hyprland per window xkb layout

The script maintains associative array windows that maps windows' addresses to selected layouts.

How it works

At script's launch every window (if any) gets currently selected xkb layout.

windows = {
    "0x7cd6bc40": "us",
    "0x7cd93c40": "us",
    "0x7cd42830": "us",
    "0x7cd2a610": "us",
    "0x7e95cb30": "us"
}

When new windows are opened the current layout is used (by default) or the first defined in kb_layout (when HPWX_PREFER_FIRST=true).

When existing window is selected - layout from windows is used.

When you change layout with one of the windows in focus - its layout is redefined:

windows = {
    "0x7cd6bc40": "us",
    "0x7cd93c40": "ru",
    "0x7cd42830": "us",
    "0x7cd2a610": "us",
    "0x7e95cb30": "us"
}

Requirements

• Bash v4.0+ - for associative arrays.
• socat - for listening for Hyprland socket2 events.
• gojq - for working with hyprctl's json.

Original jq after v1.7+ is also OK (why not earlier). If you want to use it run sed -i 's/gojq/jq/g' on the script.

Tested and works since Hyprland v0.19.0beta.

Setup

Download the script, save it somewhere in your $PATH, make sure it is executable.

The script assumes that you setup layout in dedicated device section in hyprland.conf, not inside general input block.

Let's say we have this in hyprland.conf:

device {
    name = logitech-usb-keyboard
    kb_layout = us,ru
    kb_options = caps:escape,grp:toggle
}

Then there are 2 options - (1) autodetection and (2) manual configuration.

1. You could try running the script with debug output on, see if it guesses your setup correctly

❯ HPWX_DEBUG=true hyprland-per-window-xkblayout
no config file, trying to guess options...
ok
found layout: 'us' (0) is 'English (US)'
ok
found layout: 'ru' (1) is 'Russian'
ok
define window 0x5614683c7ab0 layout as 'us'
define window 0x5614683a8940 layout as 'us'
define window 0x561469fcf2f0 layout as 'us'
define window 0x561469fc7dd0 layout as 'us'
define window 0x561469fd9440 layout as 'us'

Options set:

DEBUG = true, PREFER_FIRST = false, keyboard = 'logitech-usb-keyboard'
Long layout names to short names:
    declare -A layouts_short=([Russian]="ru" ["English (US)"]="us" )
Index of a given layout in Hyprland's 'kb_layout':
    declare -A kb_layout=([us]="0" [ru]="1" )

...waiting for new events...

If it is correct - good, you don't need to write the config file.

If you prefer windows to open with default layout (first in hyprland config) instead of inheriting the current - set HPWX_PREFER_FIRST=true either as environment variable (if you don't need to configure anything else) or in config (when you want to configure everything yourself).

❯ HPWX_PREFER_FIRST=true hyprland-per-window-xkblayout

2. If it isn't - you can use the config file to set it up manually.

Then our config, stored in ~/.config/hypr/xkb_layout.conf, will be

# config for hyprland-per-window-layout script
# use it to overwrite default values

# print events and actions taken
DEBUG=true

# keyboard device from hyprland.conf where you define `kb_layout`
# in lowercase, spaces as `-`
keyboard="logitech-usb-keyboard"

# map long layout names to short ones, as displayed in
# `hyprctl devices -j | gojq -r '.keyboards | .[] | .active_keymap' | sort -u`
# when selecting different layouts
declare -A layouts_short=(["English (US)"]="us" ["Russian"]="ru")

Once you set this up, the script is ready for use.

You can also add it to startup

# hyprland.conf

exec-once = hyprland-per-window-xkblayout