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Key-Echo

Key-Echo is an Emacs plugin that uses XRecord technology to listen to system key events. It can listen to some special single key events, such as when the user only presses the Shift key without pressing other letter keys, it sends a signal to Emacs to execute some Elisp code, such as switching input methods.

Installation

1. Install Emacs 28 or above
2. Install Python dependencies:

• Linux:
  • X: pip3 install epc sexpdata six pynput
  • pgtk: pip3 install epc sexpdata six python-libinput libevdev
• Windows: pip3 install epc sexpdata six pynput pygetwindow
• macOS: pip3 install epc sexpdata six pynput pyobjc

3. Use git clone to download this repository, and replace the load-path path in the configuration below
4. Add the following code to your configuration file ~/.emacs:

(add-to-list 'load-path "<path-to-key-echo>")

(require 'key-echo)
(key-echo-enable)

;; X/Windows/macOS
(defun key-echo-shift-to-switch-input-method (key)
  (interactive)
  (when (string-equal key "Key.shift")
    (toggle-input-method)
    ))

;; Wayland
(defun key-echo-shift-to-switch-input-method (key)
  (interactive)
  (when (or (string-equal key "KEY_LEFTSHIFT")
	    (string-equal key "KEY_RIGHTSHIFT"))
    (toggle-input-method)
    ))

(setq key-echo-single-key-trigger-func 'key-echo-shift-to-switch-input-method)

After adding the above settings, you can freely switch the input method by pressing Shift.

Options

• key-echo-keyboard-quit-key: We cannot implement the Ctrl + g function by calling the keyboard-quit function, so the default setting for key-echo-keyboard-quit-key is Key.alt_r to achieve the function of sending the Ctrl + g key to Emacs when the user presses the right Alt key, to achieve the goal of quickly pressing Ctrl + g.

Python 3.13 Compatibility

Python 3.13 causes the pynput project to raise a TypeError: '_thread._ThreadHandle' object is not callable error.

The pynput master branch hasn't fixed this issue yet. You can install the fix patch using the following method:

git clone -b fixup/listener-thread-handle https://github.com/moses-palmer/pynput.git
cd pynput
sudo pip3 install . --break