Squeekboard Toggle

Deprecated: This plugin is superseded by osk-toggle Please use that instead, since it handles both Squeekboard and wvkbd from a single widget.

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A Noctalia plugin / bar widget that adds a bar widget to toggle the Squeekboard on-screen keyboard. Works with 2-in-1 Linux devices.

Features

• One-click toggle — Left-click the widget to show/hide Squeekboard
• Visual indicator — Icon reflects current keyboard state (active/hidden)
• Hover icons — Icon previews the action on hover (shows what will happen on click); can be disabled in settings
• Live state sync — Monitors gsettings changes from external sources (tablet mode, accessibility settings)
• Squeekboard availability detection — Monitors the D-Bus session to detect whether Squeekboard is running; shows an error state when it is not
• Hide when unavailable — Optionally hide the widget entirely when Squeekboard is not running (settings)
• Tooltip support — Hover to see keyboard status, or an error message if Squeekboard is not available
• Non-intrusive — Works alongside automated tablet-mode switching without conflicts

Settings

Setting	Description
Hide when unavailable	Hide the widget entirely when Squeekboard is not running
Disable hover icon	Always show the current state icon instead of a hover icon

A Recheck state button is available in settings to manually re-sync Squeekboard availability.

How it works

The widget uses gsettings to read and write the GNOME accessibility setting org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-keyboard-enabled, which controls Squeekboard's visibility. It continuously monitors this setting via dconf watch, so manual toggles and automated tablet-mode events stay in sync.

Squeekboard availability is tracked by monitoring the sm.puri.OSK0 D-Bus name via dbus-monitor. If Squeekboard stops or starts, the widget updates its state immediately without requiring a restart.

Requirements

• Squeekboard installed and running
• gsettings and dconf available (GNOME accessibility settings)
• dbus-monitor and busctl available (for availability detection)
• Noctalia ≥ 4.4.3 (for bar widget support)

Tested on

• Niri window manager with switch-events configured

Tablet Mode (2-in-1 Laptops)

This widget complements automated tablet-mode switching. Configure Niri's switch-events in ~/.config/niri/config.kdl to auto-toggle the keyboard:

switch-events {
    tablet-mode-on { spawn "bash" "-c" "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-keyboard-enabled true"; }
    tablet-mode-off { spawn "bash" "-c" "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-keyboard-enabled false"; }
}

The widget will reflect these changes in real-time without conflicts. Manual toggles via the widget work independently of tablet-mode automation.

License

MIT