[ANNOUNCE] kwin-type v0.1 is released

[Vlad Zahorodnii]

Hi,

I just wanted to leave my two cents regarding fake input vs EI.

On 10/26/26 4:07 PM, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> KWin 6.8 relaxed restrictions on the fake-input protocol [1], making

Some of the restrictions were lifted but the overall gist is that normal 
applications shouldn't use those protocols. It's just that those desktop 
keys only contributed more overhead and no real permission checks.

> it possible for command line applications to autotype. This is useful
> for `passmenu --type`, part of the pass(1) set of scripts, for being
> able to autotype into password boxes and such.
>
> I've written one such utility, called `kwin-type`. It's very simple.
> It takes input on stdin, and types it.
>
> You can read about it here:
> - https://git.zx2c4.com/kwin-type/about/
> Or its man page here:
> - https://git.zx2c4.com/kwin-type/about/kwin-type.1
> Or you can read its extremely simple source here:
> - https://git.zx2c4.com/kwin-type/tree/kwin-type.c
>
> I've also added this to Gentoo as kde-misc/kwin-type. Future versions
> of password store will depend on it for its autotyping functionality
> if it detects a KDE environment.
>
> Some background: I didn't want to have to make such a utility, but all
> the existing utilities for this seemed deficient in one way or another
> -- requiring /dev/uinput or requiring virtual-keyboard-unstable-v1 or
> using portals + EIS. I actually initially made a utility that used

It's still highly advised that you look for supporting libei. We want to 
remove the fake input protocol in favor of supporting only libei.

Regards,
Vlad

> libportal + libei called portal-type, which saved its token in a file
> and such to not need reauthorization, but it was clunky and did a lot
> of work for something so simple, so I was happy to finally come across
> this KDE-specific way of doing it cleanly. kwin-type uses
> org_kde_kwin_fake_input to type keys and org_kde_kwin_keystate to deal
> with capslock being potentially enabled. So it basically works like
> plasma's floating virtual keyboard.
>
> I'll move this over to invent.kde.org instead of git.zx2c4.com if so desired.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> Jason
>
> [1] https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/commit/f9bf0ee6b1e65cf9bad5a3d38ea417d264a33b55