Feature request: Support for Linux

[conventoangelo]

I would like to propose the addition of support for Linux systems. This would involve porting OverKeys to be compatible with Linux, expanding its usability to a wider audience. This enhancement will ensure that users on Linux can also benefit from the customizable on-screen keyboard functionalities that OverKeys offers.

[larry-oates]

Hi @conventoangelo, have you started work on this yet? I'd be interested in helping.
Are there any distributions/window managers you particularly want to Include?

I personally use hyprland and arch so will be trying to port to this first.

[conventoangelo]

Hi @larry-oates! Thanks for your interest and giving life to this thread as I forgot to give an update.

I did indeed started working on this 6 months ago and my progress can be seen in this branch. I was successful in transitioning the app to use a platform-independent keyboard listener instead of a Windows-only hook. However, there are essential packages that the app utilizes that are not yet ported correctly to Linux. Below is an excerpt from my reply to an issue of an app that suffers the same restriction.

The problem arises because two methods from the window_manager package (a dependency of keyviz), namely hasShadow and setIgnoreMouseEvents, are called. However, these methods are not yet properly implemented on Linux. Both currently only work on Windows and macOS.

You're free to help and I'd gladly review it. You can use the branch I'm working on as reference to implement the keyboard listener. I'm not leaning towards any Linux distributions as of the moment. The bare minimum is to get it running on at least one distribution. Good luck!🫡

[larry-oates]

@conventoangelo
Cheers for the information! I'll give it a go now and thanks for the luck 🙏