GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 788159
Allow global modifiers state tracking in Wayland
Last modified: 2021-07-05 14:38:19 UTC
In a Wayland session, we can set shortcuts to specific actions. For instance, Super+key can be used to perform various actions through extensions. I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, but it would be useful to also have access to the modifiers' state. I.e.: perform a specific action when long pressing the Super key alone. Here are two specific examples where this is useful: - Dash-to-dock, to show overlay numbers for each application (and then trigger with Super+num) - Modifier state extension: show on the panel the state of NumLock, CapsLock etc. This is particularly handy for keyboards that lack LEDs indicating the state. I understand that we don't want to give access to the full keyboard, for security reasons. But, would it be reasonable to make an exception for modifiers alone?
It's worth saying that both examples are of gnome-shell extensions, therefore they have privileged access to internal Mutter API, and can already (with some effort) track modifier state. There is no need for wayland protocols for shell extensions.
Ah, well, that would be enough I guess! In that case, it's more my ignorance on how to do it than gnome-shell lacking functionality. I'll look into it. But, any pointers while we are at it?
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