DWM + Colemak + Conky

Toggle QWERTY and Colemak keyboard layouts with Super+F5 key combination while using DWM with conky notification in status bar in Debian GNU/Linux 6.

1. configure DWM v6: config.h

   
   /* commands */
   static const char *setxkbmaptogglecmd[] = { "toggle-setxkbmap", NULL };
   
   * modifier key    function argument */
   { MODKEY,  XK_F5, spawn,   {.v = setxkbmaptogglecmd } },
   

2. toggle-setxkbmap script: /usr/local/bin/toggle-setxkbmap

   
   #!/usr/bin/perl
   use warnings;
   use strict;
   
   my $var;
   
   $var=`setxkbmap -v 7`;
   if ( $var =~ /^variant:\s+colemak$/m ) {
    system("setxkbmap us");
   }
   else {
    system("setxkbmap us colemak");
   }
   

3. configure conky: ~/.conkyrc

   
   out_to_console yes
   out_to_x no
   background no
   update_interval 1
   total_run_times 0
   use_spacer left
   pad_percents 3
   
   TEXT
   ${execi 10 setxkbmap -v 7 | perl -ne 'BEGIN{$var="qwerty"}$var="colemak" if /^variant:\s+colemak$/;END{print $var}'} ${cpu}% ${mem} ${time %a %b %d, %l:%M%P}
   

4. configure ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc:

   
   conky | while true; read line;do xsetroot -name "$line"; done &
   exec dwm
   

5. Reference:
   conky