Remaps your keyboard to behave more like you're on a mac again and below is how the keymap will behave. (Note: Kinto does support the remapping of Apple keyboards just fine, so you can safely ignore how I describe the keymapping below - since that is based on PC/Windows keyboards.)

Normal apps - Alt will be Ctrl, Win/Super will be Alt, Ctrl will be Win/Super
Terminal apps (optional) - Alt will be Win/Super, Win/Super will be Alt, Ctrl will be Ctrl
New Features - Cursor/word-wise shortcut keys have been added to align with macOS keyboard shortcuts.
~~Modify existing Terminal app keymap profiles (optional and with confirmation) - Copy, Paste, New Tab, etc will be remapped to use Win/Super in the physical Command (or Alt key) position.~~

What does Kinto require?

Python
systemd
x11

Any Linux distro that uses systemd. Compatibility can easily be expanded, but currently I am only writing and testing this with systemd services.

X11 is the only other requirement. Wayland can be supported, but will require a replacement for xprop - any app or DE plugin that can be made aware of the active application name and trigger scripts is sufficient. If this alternative is found then it may also replace xprop, assuming it is also compatible under x11.

How to install

clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto.git

Install python3 (If needed)

Debian or Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3

Follow the prompts and the script will guide you through the rest of the setup.

./install.py

How to Control Kinto

Under systemd this is how you control Kinto.

Status

systemctl --user status keyswap

Stop

systemctl --user stop keyswap

Start

systemctl --user start keyswap

Enable

systemctl --user enable keyswap

Disable

systemctl --user disable keyswap

Troubleshooting

If your keyboard is not being autodetected and configured then please run xinput list, if you are on linux, and copy the output into a ticket under issues.

Language Support

As far as I know this solution should work fine on all languages, but I am not able to test this on anything besides US based keyboards. The custom keymaps themselves are moduler, however if you find a problem or want to add needed language support then you can create new keymap files under the .xkb directory, just follow a similar scheme as the existing one and additional modifications can be made to mac_wordwise.sh to support additional languages during install.

If you would like to attempt adding additional custom keymaps then I strongly recommend reading Glen Whitney's post here. https://superuser.com/questions/385748/binding-superc-superv-to-copy-and-paste

Known Issues

USB Hubs

USB hubs may prevent Apple branded keyboards from loading properly or other Apple specific keyboards that are intended to make use of the "hid_apple" driver. Without this driver it is not possible to run the following command and have it swap alt and cmd.

echo '1' | sudo tee -a /sys/module/hid_apple/parameters/swap_opt_cmd

This is required so that Apple and Windows keyboards can co-exist with the exact same keymappings, provided by setxkbmap. The solution for now is to avoid using a usb hub for your keyboard. Other possible solutions may be finding a way to patch the hid_apple module to accept other vendor and product id's so that it will still load the driver properly.

Other solutions may involve implementing a separate Mac system option in Kinto with a keyswap specific to a usb hub situation, however it will not be possible to have a Windows keyboard (aka internal laptop keyboard) working with the same keymap at the same time.

KDE with Konsole or QT5 apps may block Super+ custom keymaps

In the macterm branch you will find a WIP, it is possible to remap Super+T to something like Ctrl+Shift+T using xkbcomp, so that remapping certain defaults in most Terminal apps would not be required. The issue however is that KDE and Konsole (or QT5 apps?) appear to have a conflict with the custom keymap I created for Super. Until a resolution is found this feature will not be a default or optional to install.

If anyone finds a solution then please contact me, create an issue or submit a pull request and I will merge it - the custom Terminal keymaps have already been made and exist in all branches.

Debugging

If you would like you can disable the Kinto keyswap service and run xactive.sh directly so that you can monitor the switching process between Windows and the terminal. First you will want to view the keyswap service file to make sure you pass the correct arguments to xactive.sh. Most configurations do not really need the specific internal or usb id of your keyboard, but chromebook installs do require it.

cat ~/.config/systemd/user/keyswap.service

systemctl --user disable keyswap
systemctl --user stop keyswap

~/.config/xactive.sh mac 12 0 none

You can also refer to this Gist file to better understand what Kinto is doing and the simplicity of it. (The gist does not make use of any custom keymaps.) https://gist.github.com/rbreaves/f4cf8a991eaeea893999964f5e83eebb

Contributing

I welcome any and all contributors who want to contribute something to this project.

If you are specifically wanting to contribute additional custom keymaps to help with aligning Kinto's behavior to that of a mac keyboard then I would strongly recommend that you read Ramhounds comment on Superuser (the link is below). You may also look at the .xkb directory, mac_worsewise.sh and xactive.sh files to better understand how Kinto operates so that you can test your own keymaps without having to use the systemd service or running the xactive.sh script.

https://superuser.com/questions/385748/binding-superc-superv-to-copy-and-paste

License

GPL v2

Languages

Python 58.9%

AutoHotkey 23.1%

Shell 14.9%

Batchfile 1.6%

VBScript 1.1%

Other 0.4%