A tool which brings familiar Alt-Tab shortcut from stacking window managers (used in Windows, Mac, KDE, GNOME, etc.) to Sway WM workspaces on Linux
Install a binary crate with cargo:
cargo install --git https://github.com/ar7eniyan/swaywm-alttab
The swaywm-alttab binary is going to be in ~/.cargo/bin, add it to PATH if needed
TODO: make an AUR package.
To use this program, you'll need to find the input device file for your keyboard. Input device files are placed by the Linux kernel in /dev/input/eventN. There are some tools to show the available input devices: for example sudo evtest or sudo libinput debug-events. Without using any third-party software, the names and other attributes of input devices can be found by cat /proc/bus/input/devices.
In order for swaywm-alttab to properly access input devices and uinput kernel device as an unpriviliged user, the following steps should be made:
- Create udev rules for /dev/input/ and /dev/uinput:
- /etc/udev/rules.d/72-swaywm-alttab-input.rules:
KERNEL=="uinput", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
SUBSYSTEM=="input", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
TODO: does this put a security risk on a system?
- Make uinput kernel module to load on boot (doesn't load automatically at least on Arch):
- /etc/modules-load.d/uinput.conf:
uinput
- Reboot or run the following:
# Reload udev rules
sudo udevadm trigger
sudo udevadm control --reload
# Load uinput kernel module
sudo modprobe uinput
After you found the /dev/input/eventN path for your keyboard and set up the permissions, start the tool in a terminal to check if everything works correctly. Pass the input device path as an argument, replacing N with yout actual device number:
~/.cargo/bin/swaywm-alttab /dev/input/eventN
The actual shortcut is not Alt+Tab, but (LMeta|RMeta)+Tab, following the default Sway usage of Meta key for navigation. Focus on different workspaces for the tool to start keeping track of them, and press the key combination to see if it works.
To run swaywm-alttab on sway startup, add the following line to ~/.config/sway/config:
exec ~/.cargo/bin/swaywm-alttab /dev/input/eventN
The default key combination is (LMeta|RMeta)+Tab, remember that. But if you want, you can configure any key combination by using command line --modifiers and --trigger options. For example, the default setup would look like this if redundantly configured with the mentioned options: swaywm-alttab --modifiers KEY_LEFTMETA KEY_RIGHTMETA --trigger KEY_TAB <input device>. The app supports setting 1 or 2 modifier keys, and exactly one trigger key if you need to change it for some reason. To use the Alt+Tab shortcut (like on most platforms) instead of Meta+Tab, run the app like this:
~/.cargo/bin/swaywm-alttab <input device> --modifiers KEY_LEFTALT
[!WARNING] Be careful when passing
--modifiersoption since it takes up to two values, which would mistakenly try to parse the path as a key name in this case:~/.cargo/bin/swaywm-alttab --modifiers KEY_LEFTALT <input device> error: invalid value '<input device>' for '--modifiers <MODIFIERS>...': no such key code
To enable logging, set environment variable RUSTLOG to one of these values: error, warn, info, debug, trace. The default log level is info. For more complex selectors, see envlogger's documentation.
``` Copyright (C) 2023 Arseniy Kuznetsov
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/. ```