Terminal command for changing ibus keyboard layout?

command-line keyboard-layout ibus

7,035

Solution 1

Actually, ibus provides an system tray applet.

Run ibus-setup
On General tab, Check Show icon on system tray
On General tab, confirm you have shortcut
On Advanced tab,Uncheck Use system keyboard layout

Solution 2

It's more related to xkb than to ibus (but I am not sure I completely understand the intricacy of the keyboard handling, as you can see in this post of mine) but you can detect the current configuration with

[romano:~] % setxkbmap -query
rules:      evdev
model:      pc105
layout:     es,gb
variant:    standard_tlde,
options:    caps:none,compose:caps,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

note it down, and then use

setxkbmap -layout es -variant standard_tlde -option caps:none,compose:caps,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

that you can associate to a key. It should work in all Ubuntu flavors, at least X11-based (no idea about wayland).

Solution 3

Use ibus command to set m17n

ibus engine m17n:te:itrans

to set us

ibus engine xkb:us::eng

list engines

ibus list-engine

show available engines

ibus read-config

7,035

Fiksdal

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Fiksdal over 1 year

Is it possible to use terminal commands to switch between keyboard layouts in ibus? I can't see any GUI way to do it in XFCE.
- Fiksdal almost 8 years
  
  @DKBose The default keyboard layout app in XFCE didn't have any option for the keyboard layout I need (phonetic Tamil.) That's why I installed ibus. I have Lubuntu, but I've installed xubuntu-desktop and mostly use that. The only way I've found now is to log out of XFCE, into Lubuntu to switch layout, then back into XFCE.
- Rmano almost 8 years
  
  I admit I do not know if it works in your case --- I have ibus installed but I am not sure I'm using it --- can you try setxkbmap -query when you have the correct layout, and setxkbmap -layout XX -variant YYYYYY -option A:B,C:D to switch? obviously substitute XX, YYY etc. with the output that -query gives to you.
- Fiksdal almost 8 years
  
  @Rmano setxkbmap -query tells me that the layout is gb, no matter if I have Tamil or US English active.
- mxmlnkn about 7 years
  
  @Rmano please post your comment as an answer, it actually answers the question posed, which is shown in google not the underlying personal problem of the asker. I needed this to define a custom shortcut for Ctrl+2 to set an often needed language instead of always having to choose in the switching menu shown in the switch-shortcut (super+space for me)
- Rmano about 7 years
  
  @mxmlnkn, done.
Fiksdal almost 8 years

Yes, works quite well, thank you. Just tried it on Lubuntu Xenial while logged into XFCE.
OJFord almost 4 years

Unfortunately it resets to the GUI-selected one as soon as you switch terminal (even if you switch back).
programandoconro almost 3 years

Finally I can change layout using keyboard binding in i3. Thanks!!