[solved] sway wayland keyboard layout variant not handled, only qwerty is displayed

[severindupouy]

Hi,
I'm looking for help / explanations about how to make kanata work with my configuration.

When I launch kanata, layout is always in qwerty. I can't make it use the layout configured in sway.

The OS is manjaro sway.

Kanata (v1.6.1) has been installed with cargo.

The keyboard sway config is :

input "7764:8240:TypeMatrix.com_USB_Keyboard" {
  xkb_model      tm2030USB-102
  xkb_layout     fr,fr
  xkb_variant    ergol,bepo_afnor
  xkb_options    grp:win_space_toggle
}
input "1:1:AT_Translated_Set_2_keyboard" {
   xkb_model      pc105
   xkb_layout     fr,fr
   xkb_variant    ergol,azerty
   xkb_options    grp:win_space_toggle
}

I'm trying to use kanata in the way described here : https://github.com/OneDeadKey/arsenik/tree/main/kanata with its kanata.kbd.

So I launch it with kanata -c /path/to/kanata.kbd and it seems to start correctly with logs.

But it results that keyboard is not anymore in ergol keyboard layout variant, but in qwerty.
If I try to toggle keyboard with win_space_toggle, it still is in qwerty.
I've tried to make sway reload its config with cmd+shift+c, but no, it's in qwerty.

I'm totally newbie with kanata and I'm not sure to understand how all of this works, but I'd love to test keyboard HRM features, so that's why I'm here.

Thanks for helping !

[jtroo]

Kanata is a separate output input device name so you need a new entry for it in the sway config.

Caveat: I don't use sway or Wayland, this is based on my readings of past discussion.

[severindupouy]

Oh yes, that's genius, it works ! Thanks a lot.

In fact, it's an input rather than an output.

So, I modified my sway config :

input "7764:8240:TypeMatrix.com_USB_Keyboard" {
  xkb_model      tm2030USB-102
  xkb_layout     fr,fr
  xkb_variant    ergol,bepo_afnor
  xkb_options    grp:win_space_toggle
}
input "1:1:AT_Translated_Set_2_keyboard" {
   xkb_model      pc105
   xkb_layout     fr,fr
   xkb_variant    ergol,azerty
   xkb_options    grp:win_space_toggle
}
input "1:1:kanata" {
  xkb_layout     fr,fr
  xkb_variant    ergol,azerty
  xkb_options    grp:win_space_toggle
}

Then :

1. launch kanata
2. reload sway config with Super+shift+C

It works.

It could be great to save this somewhere, I can review it if needed.

---

EDIT
I think I'm understanding better what's happening with this.
Most of the time, I believe people uses the default documented configuration of sway inputs, which use a wildcard to identify "inputs". In that case, kanata is well identified as any keyboard, without modifying the config.

input * {
  xkb_layout     fr,fr
  xkb_variant    ergol,azerty
  xkb_options    grp:win_space_toggle
}

In my case, I choose to narrow the identification of my keyboard, as I wanted different layouts config on each keyboard. But I didn't use at all the wildcard, so kanata wasn't identified.