[BUG] ydotool types wrong characters on non us keyboard layouts

[christophtschmidt]

🐛 Bug Description

I'm using german keyboard layout. ydotool is typing some keys like y, z, ä, ö etc. wrong.
I know this is an ydotool issue. But theres no other option on KDE Plasma with Wayland..

📋 Steps to Reproduce

Simly speak a text containing characters mentioned above.

✅ Expected Behavior

characters are typed the way they are recognized.
maybe implement vocalinux as input method (IME)?

💻 Environment

• OS: Fedora 42
• Python Version 3.13.11
• Vocalinux Version: 0.15.0
• Display Server: Wayland
• Speech Engine:tested [VOSK and Whisper
• Model Size: tested small and medium

## 📝 Additional Context
In vocalinux log the recognized text is shown with  the correct characters.
 

[christophtschmidt]

this is an ydotool issue: ReimuNotMoe/ydotool#22

[christophtschmidt]

and btw: i needed to fix permission issues on Fedora to get ydotool working
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/ydotool-not-working-on-fedora-40/114333/4

[jatinkrmalik]

Hi @christophtschmidt,

Thank you for reporting this issue! You're absolutely right, this is a known limitation with ydotool and non-US keyboard layouts.

Why this happens

ydotool simulates keycodes rather than Unicode characters. When you have a German keyboard layout, the same keycode produces different characters than on a US layout. For example, the keycode for "y" on a US keyboard produces "z" on a German layout, which explains why you're seeing swapped characters for y/z and special characters like ä/ö/ü.

Current workarounds

Option 1: Try wtype (if your compositor supports it)
wtype uses the Wayland virtual keyboard protocol and handles Unicode text directly, which avoids this issue. You can check if it works on your KDE Plasma setup:

# Check if wtype is available
which wtype

# Test if your compositor supports it
wtype "test äöü"

If wtype works, Vocalinux will automatically prefer it over ydotool. However, KDE Plasma's KWin doesn't fully support the virtual keyboard protocol, which is why ydotool was prioritized as the universal fallback.

Option 2: Check if XWayland fallback works
You could try forcing XWayland mode as a temporary workaround. This would use xdotool with XWayland, which doesn't have this keyboard layout issue:

vocalinux --debug  # Check which backend is being used

Your IME suggestion

Your idea about implementing Vocalinux as an Input Method Editor (IME) is excellent! This would be the proper long-term solution for Wayland because:

• IMEs receive text directly and handle composition properly
• They work independently of keyboard layouts
• They're the standard Wayland approach for alternative text input (like CJK input methods)

This would require implementing an IBus/Fcitx5 plugin or a native Wayland text-input protocol extension. It's a significant undertaking but would solve this and other internationalization issues.

Next steps

To help us prioritize solutions, could you:

1. Test wtype on your system and let us know if it works with KDE Plasma
2. Share the output of vocalinux --debug so we can see which backend is being selected
3. Confirm if you'd be interested in testing an IME-based prototype if we explore that direction

For reference, I've labeled this as a keyboard-layout issue and we'll track potential solutions including:

• Better keyboard layout detection with ydotool
• IME implementation exploration
• Alternative text injection methods for Wayland

Thanks again for the detailed report and the thoughtful IME suggestion!

[mr-bembel]

Same on Ubuntu 26.04 Daily. (FR)

Otherwise works Great !

[jatinkrmalik]

@mr-bembel @christophtschmidt This is now fixed and we are sending unicode via IBUS, so it should technically just type in your chosen language.

Can you folks please test it again? I tested for different layouts, but @AntoineMontane tested for diff language, so it should work now.

Let me know when you try the latest release v0.6.2-beta, I will close this ticket once you confirm.

[mr-bembel]

It works great in the Vocalinux test box now. But still EN input in various apps...

[christophtschmidt]

Thank you for your work!

Sadly, IBus integration doesn't work that way on Fedora KDE. The path .local/share/ibus/component/ is not used. Seems like only /usr/share/ibus/component/ is read - and root access is needed to install it there.

After copying it there i needed the following commands to make it appear in ibus-setup:

ibus write-cache
ibus-daemon -drx

In ibus-setup i selected other - vocalinux as input method.
In KDE Setting - Virtual Keyboard i switched to IBus Wayland

But still:
vocalinux.text_injection.ibus_engine - ERROR - Text injection failed: NO_ENGINE

[AntoineMontane]

@christophtschmidt .local/share/ibus/component/ is not used on gnome either by default ; the ibus daemon is restarted with a modified PATH https://github.com/jatinkrmalik/vocalinux/blob/f79917c386a7be9312e65bff9ffcec81e188e832/src/vocalinux/text_injection/ibus_engine.py#L720C14-L720C33
Could you provide your logs ?

[christophtschmidt]

Oops sorry, didn't see that. Maybe i used the same ai as the creator of ibus_engine.py ;-)

This is the debug log running vocalinux with ibus.xml already in place:
vocalinux_debug.txt

[AntoineMontane]

@christophtschmidt Hey !
while vocalinux is running, could you

• run "ibus engine"
• ps -ef| grep ibus_engine |grep -v grep
• cat ~/.local/share/ibus/component/vocalinux.xml
  and provide the output ?

[christophtschmidt]

Hi :-)

The output of the commands is in the txt:
shell_output.txt

As stated before, i copied the xml file manually.
Should i delete it and setup vocalinux from start? But to me the ibus engine looks properly installed.

[AntoineMontane]

You have two ibus engines running; probably a stale one which monopolize the socket.
kill them :
pkill -f ibus_engine.py
ibus restart
and then restart vocalinux fresh !

[christophtschmidt]

I'm so sorry... didn't realize that.
ibus restart did hang... but after a reboot: Finally it's working :-)

Thank you!