Can I use Plover without a GUI?

[F1LT3R]

Is it possible to use Plover without a GUI? IE: on a Linux device with no GUI installed?

How would I do this?

[Teteros]

You can use --gui none option (at least on plover 4+) which works for daemonized usage but plover is still reliant on xorg server to run.

[F1LT3R]

Ok thanks @Teteros
I found this from Ian Cloud: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ploversteno/1cJlOU7eJzM/C4cCw5-nFAAJ - which says that it can be run from the terminal. Perhaps that still uses xorg though.

[F1LT3R]

@Teteros what function is xorg server playing exactly? I'm trying to establish what a NodeJS port of Plover might look like.

[Teteros]

Plover is using hardcoded keymaps from xorg
https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/blob/master/plover/key_combo.py#L6
https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/blob/master/plover/oslayer/xkeyboardcontrol.py

Not sure how well you could grab keys from linux framebuffer / virtual console instead, or if it's even viable.

This dependency on xorg is a stopper for #1050 (Wayland support) as well since you'd need to support one of its compositors instead of using xlib.

[benoit-pierre]

Even when run with no GUI (-g none), Plover still rely on X11 support for:

• the keyboard machine: using the XInput extension to capture/grab input
• simulating keyboard input: detecting the keyboard layout (this is not hard-coded, the list in key_combo.py is unrelated) and dynamically patching it for full Unicode support, and using the XTest extension for simulating keyboard events