keypop 0.2.1

Transparent keypress overlay for Linux screencasts and demos
keypop-0.2.1 is not a library.

keypop

A transparent keypress overlay for Linux. Shows your recent keypresses in a pill bar — great for screencasts, tutorials, and live demos.

Works on X11 and Wayland.

┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│                                  │
│           (your desktop)         │
│                                  │
│              ┌──────────────────┐│
│              │ Ctrl+C │ Tab │ V ││
│              └──────────────────┘│
│                               ▲  │
│              ════════════════════│
└──────────────────────────────────┘

Install

Make sure you have Rust installed, then:

cargo install --git https://github.com/OmChillure/keypop

This builds a release binary and places it in ~/.cargo/bin/keypop.

System dependencies [if not already]

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev pkg-config

# Fedora
sudo dnf install libxkbcommon-devel wayland-devel

Permissions

keypop reads directly from /dev/input. Add yourself to the input group — no root required:

sudo usermod -aG input $USER
# log out and back in, then verify:
groups | grep input

Usage

Configure

Set your preferences interactively. Press Enter to keep the value shown in brackets:

keypop configure

keypop configuration
Press Enter to keep the value shown in [brackets].

  Font size [24]: 28
  Opacity (0.0–1.0) [0.75]:
  Display time in seconds (2, 3, or 5) [3]: 5
  Number of keys to show (1–5) [3]:

Saved to /home/user/.config/keypop/config.toml

Settings are saved to ~/.config/keypop/config.toml. Run keypop configure again at any time to update them.

Run

keypop run

Press Esc or Ctrl+C to quit.

Command list

keypop

Shows:

..K...K..EEEE..Y...Y..PPPP....OOO...PPPP..
..K..K...E......Y.Y...P...P..O...O..P...P.
..KKK....EEE.....Y....PPPP...O...O..PPPP..
..K..K...E.......Y....P......O...O..P.....
..K...K..EEEE....Y....P.......OOO...P.....
-----------------------------------------------
keypop --help
keypop run
keypop configure

Options

Setting Default Description
font_size 24 Key label font size in pixels
opacity 0.75 Bar opacity (0.0–1.0)
display_time 3 Seconds before overlay hides (2, 3, or 5)
keys 3 Number of recent keys to show (1–5)

Tiling WM notes

WM Config
Sway for_window [app_id="keypop"] floating enable, sticky enable
Hyprland windowrulev2 = float, class:^(keypop)$ + windowrulev2 = pin, class:^(keypop)$
i3 Requires a compositor (e.g. picom) for transparency
GNOME / KDE Works out of the box

Contributing

  1. Create an issue for the bug or feature.
  2. Fix it in your branch.
  3. Open a pull request linked to the issue.

Socials

License

MIT — see LICENSE