wayremap

Dynamic keyboard remapper for Wayland.

It works on both X Window Manager and Wayland, but focused on Wayland as it intercepts evdev input and require root permission.

Motivation

Wayland and Sway is awesome. It brings lots of benefit to Linux desktop environment.

When I was using X desktop envionment, there is an awesome tool called xremap which remap keys based on current focused application.

https://github.com/k0kubun/xremap

I was looking for something similar to xremap for Wayland, but not found, so I decided to create on my own.

Install

sudo pip install wayremap

# For beta version
sudo pip3 install git+https://github.com/acro5piano/wayremap

Run

For Wayland security model, we have to run keyboard remapping tools as root permission.

Simply write your own service and run it as a python script:

 # /etc/wayremap.config.py

from wayremap import ecodes as e, run, WayremapConfig, Binding, wait_sway
import uinput as k

wayremap_config = WayremapConfig(
    # Note that `'/dev/input/event4'` varies among system.
    input_path='/dev/input/event4',

    # Filter applications which remap will be applied
    applications=[
        'Chromium',
        'Brave-browser',
        'Leafpad',
        'firefoxdeveloperedition',
    ],

    bindings=[
        # To see all available binding keys, please see
        # https://github.com/acro5piano/wayremap/blob/06d27c9bb86b766d7fd1e4230f3a16827785519e/wayremap/ecodes.py
        # modifier keys are `KEY_LEFTCTRL` or `KEY_LEFTALT`, or both. Neither `shift` nor `super` is not implemented yet.

        # Emacs-like key binding
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_A],
                [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_HOME]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_E],
                [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_END]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_H],
                [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_BACKSPACE]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_F], [[k.KEY_RIGHT]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_B], [[k.KEY_LEFT]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_P], [[k.KEY_UP]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_N], [[k.KEY_DOWN]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_K],
                [[k.KEY_LEFTSHIFT, k.KEY_END], [k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_X]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_A], [[k.KEY_HOME]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_E], [[k.KEY_END]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_Y], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_V]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_F], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_RIGHT]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_B], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_LEFT]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_D], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_DELETE]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_H], [[k.KEY_BACKSPACE]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_D], [[k.KEY_DELETE]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTCTRL, e.KEY_S], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_F]]),


        # OSX-like key binding
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_A], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_A]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_C], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_C]]),
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_V], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_V]]),

        # Slack helm!
        Binding([e.KEY_LEFTALT, e.KEY_X], [[k.KEY_LEFTCTRL, k.KEY_K]]),
    ])


# Required if you want to use wayremap as a startup service.
wait_sway()

# Finally, run wayremap.
run(wayremap_config)

And then

sudo modprobe uinput
sudo python /etc/wayremap.config.py

Enable wayremap as a systemd service

echo uinput | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/wayremap.conf # Add uinput to auto-loaded linux modules
sudo vim /etc/wayremap.config.py # Edit your config
sudo cp ./systemd/wayremap.service /etc/systemd/system/wayremap.service
sudo systemctl enable wayremap
sudo reboot

Known bugs

• 3 is pressed when changing focused window → Fixed now
• Key repeating become slow while switching focused windowd

Roadmap

• Enable to run wihtout Sway.
• Support shift and super keys too.
• Packaging for Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, etc.
• Enable to load per-application config.
• Re-write in Rust for better performance.