NOTE: As of version 1.0 KKBSwitch has online documentation, so refer to it for 
more information. This README file will no longer be maintained, but the 
documentation will instead.


                          KKBSwitch
                 by Leonid Zeitlin <lz@europe.com>
                          Version 1.0

KKBSwitch is a keyboard layout indicator for KDE 2. It is useful when you have
configured the XKeyboard extension of your X Server to have more than one
keyboard group, for example US/ASCII and Russian. KKBSwitch displays an icon
in the system tray that indicates which layout is currently active. Note that
KKBSwitch does not help you configure XKeyboard, it merely serves as the 
indicator of the current group. You still have to configure XKeyboard by 
editing XF86Config file.

KKBSwitch features:
- displays an icon in the KDE's system tray indicating the active keyboard group
- you can switch keyboard groups by clicking the icon or selecting the
desired group from the icon's menu
- icons corresponding to different groups are configurable (chosen from country
flag pixmaps that ship with KDE)
- "Toggle mode" (see below for more).

Using KKBSwicth.

The most basic usage is simply to let it sit in the system tray and show you 
which keyboard group is currently active. You can also click the KKBSwicth 
system tray icon to switch keyboard layouts. When right-clicked, the system 
tray icon displays a menu with the following entries:

- one or more entries corresponding to the configured keyboard groups (XKeyboard
can have up to 4 groups configured). The currently active group will be checked.
Selecting a menu entry corresponding to a group will make that group active.
- "Configure Keyboard Switch..." entry lets you configure KKBSwitch
- "About Keyboard Switch" displays a standard "About" dialog
- "Quit" quits KKBSwitch.

Configuring KKBSwicth.

In the KKBSwitch configuration dialog you can do the following:
- set the icons corresponding to the available keyboard groups. Note that
KKBSwitch will try hard to guess the correct icon based on the name of the
keyboard group (the names are configured in XKeyboard). For example, it will
display the US flag for US/ASCII group, German flag for German group, Russian
flag for Russian group, etc. If it cannot guess an icon, it will display the
"default" icon, which simply shows the group's number. Use the configuration
dialog to customize the icons: select a group in the "Available keyboard groups"
listbox, and click "Change icon..." button. You will be able to select from the
list of country flag pixmaps that is shipped with KDE.
- turn the "Toggle mode" on and off. "Toggle mode" is a convient feature of
KKBSwitch, which is useful if you have more than 2 groups. When "Toggle mode"
is on, pressing the XKeyboard's group switch key or clicking KKBSwitch's tray
icon will toggle between the two most recently used groups. To activate the
third or the fourth (if available) group you'll need to right-click KKBSwitch's
tray icon and select the desired group from the menu. For example, I have
US/ASCII, Russian and Ukrainian layouts configured. Most of the time I use
either US/ASCII or Russian layout and switch back and forth between them without
activating the rarely needed Ukrainian layout. But sometimes I need to write
something in Ukrainian, so I select this layout from the tray icon's menu. When
"Toggle mode" is on, the two most recently used groups will be marked with an
asterisk in the KKBSwitch tray icon's menu.


DCOP Bindings

As of version 0.2, KKBSwitch can be manipulated programmatically with DCOP.
It exports an interface named KBSwitchIntf. The interfaces offers the following
methods:
- int getNumKbdGroups() - returns the number of configured keyboard groups
(layouts)
- ASYNC selectNextGroup() - does the same thing as clicking on the KKBSwitch's
tray icon, i.e. makes the next keyboard group active. If in "toggle mode", toggles
between the two recently used ones, just like clicking on the tray icon does.
- ASYNC selectGroup(int groupno) - makes the group whose number is groupno active
(like selecting a group from the tray icon popup menu)
- QStringList getGroupNames() - returns the list of the keyboard group names,
as configured in XKeyboard.