wvkbd-norsk

A full Norwegian keyboard layout (æ, ø, å on the correct keys) for wvkbd — the on-screen virtual keyboard for wlroots-based Wayland compositors (Hyprland, Sway, etc).

Built as a variant of the deskintl layout (full-size on-screen keyboard), with only the keys that are physically different on a Norwegian keyboard changed:

Key (physical position)	US layout	Norwegian layout
Right of P	[ {	å Å
Right of L	; :	æ Æ
Right of that	' "	ø Ø

Tested and in daily use on Arch Linux + Hyprland.

Installation

1. Install build dependencies

sudo pacman -S --needed wayland libxkbcommon pango cairo scdoc base-devel

Important: the package is called libxkbcommon in Arch's repositories, not xkbcommon (the latter is only the internal pkg-config module name used during the build, not the actual package name — an easy trap to fall into).

2. Clone wvkbd and drop in the layout files

mkdir -p ~/Projects/norwegian-keyboard
cd ~/Projects/norwegian-keyboard
git clone https://github.com/jjsullivan5196/wvkbd.git .

git clone https://github.com/archruud/wvkbd-norsk.git /tmp/wvkbd-norsk
cp /tmp/wvkbd-norsk/*.h .

3. Build and install

make LAYOUT=norsk
sudo make LAYOUT=norsk install

This installs a binary called wvkbd-norsk into /usr/local/bin/. The wvkbd source folder itself can be deleted afterwards if you want — it's only used for building; the finished binary now lives on its own in the system.

4. Test it directly

wvkbd-norsk

A keyboard should appear anchored to the bottom of the screen, full width. Test æ/ø/å in a text field. Close with Ctrl+C in the terminal.

Adjust the height with -L (landscape) or -H (portrait):

wvkbd-norsk -L 320   # experiment to find the right height for your screen

Using it with Hyprland

In hyprland.lua, autostart the keyboard hidden, and use a signal to show/hide it with a keybind:

hl.on("hyprland.start", function()
    hl.exec_cmd("wvkbd-norsk -L 320 --hidden")
end)

hl.bind("SUPER + T", hl.dsp.exec_cmd("pkill --signal SIGRTMIN wvkbd-norsk"))

-- Optional: slide up from the bottom of the screen on toggle, instead of
-- just appearing/disappearing instantly:
hl.layer_rule({
    match = { namespace = "wvkbd" },
    animation = "slide",
})

SIGRTMIN toggles visibility of an already-running instance — it doesn't start a new process on every press, it shows/hides the one already running in the background.

Creating your own language layout

This recipe follows the exact same method used to build the Norwegian layout, and can be reused for any language with a handful of keys that differ from the US layout (Swedish, Danish, German, French, etc).

1. Copy the starting point

cd wvkbd
cp keymap.deskintl.h keymap.YOURLANG.h
cp layout.deskintl.h layout.YOURLANG.h
cp config.deskintl.h config.YOURLANG.h

2. Find the XKB keysym names for your special characters

Every standard Unicode letter has a fixed, documented XKB name (this isn't something you guess — they're defined in X11's keysymdef.h and have been stable for decades). Some examples:

Letter	XKB name (lowercase)	XKB name (uppercase)
æ / Æ	ae	AE
ø / Ø	oslash	Ooblique
å / Å	aring	Aring
ü / Ü	udiaeresis	Udiaeresis
ñ / Ñ	ntilde	Ntilde
ç / Ç	ccedilla	Ccedilla

Full list: run grep -i "^#define XK_" /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h on any Linux machine with the X11 headers installed.

3. Edit the xkb_symbols section in the keymap file

Find the line for the key you want to change (search for the physical key position, e.g. <AC10> for the key right of L). The format is:

key <AC10>               {	[       semicolon,           colon ] };\

Replace it with your character (remember: an actual TAB character between { and [, not a space or the literal text \t — use a small Python script to guarantee the correct byte format instead of editing by hand):

with open('keymap.YOURLANG.h', 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    lines = f.readlines()
TAB = '\t'
lines[LINE_NUMBER - 1] = f'        key <AC10>               {{{TAB}[                  ae,              AE ] }};\\\n'
with open('keymap.YOURLANG.h', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    f.writelines(lines)

Important: this text is part of one continuous C string spanning thousands of lines. Every line MUST end with exactly one \ character (line continuation) — not zero, not two. Use cat -A filename.h to compare your line ending against an unmodified line in the same file before you're satisfied.

4. Edit the visible button label in the layout file

Find the same physical key in layout.YOURLANG.h (search for the same KEY_SEMICOLON/KEY_APOSTROPHE/etc. — the scancode name, not the keysym name):

{";", ":", 1.0, Code, KEY_SEMICOLON},

becomes:

{"æ", "Æ", 1.0, Code, KEY_SEMICOLON},

5. Build and test

make LAYOUT=YOURLANG
./wvkbd-YOURLANG   # test directly, without installing first

Does the right character show up when you press the right key? You're done — sudo make LAYOUT=YOURLANG install.

Contributing back

Made a layout for another language? Feel free to open a pull request with your keymap.YOURLANG.h / layout.YOURLANG.h / config.YOURLANG.h files in this repo, so we can collect several languages in one place.

License

The layout files in this repo are derived from wvkbd's own deskintl setup and follow the same license as the upstream project (see LICENSE/COPYING in jjsullivan5196/wvkbd).