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Is there a way to show a (notify-osd) notification every time the keyboard layout is changed?

I have a laptop with a screen with not enough resolution to have tons/10+ indicators, and space for the title bar of windows, and I want to eliminate the keyboard indicator required when you have multiple keyboards.

I'm using Unity on 13.04.

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  • It's possible to show notifications. I also had in mind changing the launcher color, because notifications are easy to miss. Would you still be interested in such solution ? – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 17 '16 at 18:23
  • @Serg Unfortunately, I have moved on from Ubuntu to Arch, and the tiny 4:3 laptop has been relegated to dumb terminal duty (it does admirably). I also completely abandoned using different keyboard layouts because it's annoying, and switched to just using a compose key. – Yet Another User May 21 '16 at 1:35
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I wrote a script called notify-kbd-layout.sh and symlinked it to /usr/bin: sudo ln -s ./notify-kbd-layout.sh /usr/bin/notify-kbd-layout

Obligatory source code:

if [ "$(xset -q | grep -A 0 'LED' | cut -c59-67)" = '00000000' ] 
  then
  notify-send 'Current Keyboard Layout:' 'US (English)'
fi
if [ "$(xset -q | grep -A 0 'LED' | cut -c59-67)" = '00001000' ]
  then
  notify-send 'Current Keyboard Layout:' 'CMS (French)'
fi

Then, I went into Settings>Keyboard>Shortcuts>Custom, and added a shortcut for ALT+Shift to run notify-kbd-layout.

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  • 1
    Could you please explain the different commands? I have 3 different layouts and xset -q | grep -A 0 'LED' | cut -c59-67) always return the same number., 00000000. To be honest, it gave me a different value (`'00000002') only the first time I executed it, still don't know why. – tigerjack89 May 17 '16 at 18:25
  • @tigerjack89 I have no idea how it works anymore. Try explainshell.com – Yet Another User May 21 '16 at 1:33
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You do not say if you use unity or something else. I use cairo-dock, and I stick not so often used icons in a sub-dock to save space. Cairo-dock also has extensions such as has a notification-area and notification-area-old which capture several indicators (dropbox, WiFi, keyboard) in one icon. Clicking on the icon gives the usual results. I don't use this because with the current theme the composite icon is half transparent and not very visible.

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