Show flags instead of labels in the keyboard layout language indicator in GNOME shell

Question

Is there a way to show flags instead of labels in the language indicator in the top panel, in gnome-shell (3.28)?

I found this setting in dconf-editor: /org/gnome/libgnomekbd/indicator/show-flags But it's ineffective, nothing changes if I set that to true.

Is there a way to do this?

pomsky · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-04T18:46:01.310

15

Here is a hacky workaround.

You need to change the abbreviations of layouts (e.g. "en") shown in the keyboard layout indicator of GNOME top bar following this very detailed answer by @MathCubes.
As mentioned in the answer the <shortDescription> tags in the /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml file dictate the abbreviations. Change the <shortDescription> labels associated to your chosen layouts (e.g. en) to suitable flag emojis (you can get them from Get Emoji or Emojipedia).

Since GNOME shell v3.28 supports global colour emojis, you should see coloured flags instead of labels after you reboot or re-login or restart the GNOME Shell.

Example:

(after replacing en by for the "English (UK)" layout)

edited May 04 '20 at 18:46

answered Aug 31 '18 at 16:06

pomsky

68,507

1

This is AWESOME! Thank you very much! I wish I could make an extension for this. – Jimmy Scionti Sep 02 '18 at 07:39
2

Reboot is not required. It's enough to logout & login to take changes in effect. – ks1322 May 04 '20 at 18:38
1

@ks1322 Yes, even restarting the GNOME Shell is enough. – pomsky May 04 '20 at 18:44

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 15 '23 at 14:28

0

✅ I made this extension exactly for that: https://github.com/jasursadikov/gnome-language-flags Thanks @pomsky for the reference.

answered Dec 15 '23 at 14:28

Jasur Sadikov

101

Show flags instead of labels in the keyboard layout language indicator in GNOME shell

2 Answers2

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