Input Leap
Contact info:
#inputleapon LiberaChat IRC network, for support with Input Leap.#inputleap-devon LiberaChat IRC network, for discussing development of Input Leap.
What is it?
Input Leap is software that mimics the functionality of a KVM switch, which
historically would allow you to use a single keyboard and mouse to control
multiple computers by physically turning a dial on the box to switch the machine
you're controlling at any given moment. Input Leap does this in software, allowing
you to tell it which machine to control by moving your mouse to the edge of the
screen, or by using a keypress to switch focus to a different system.
Input Leap was forked
from Barrier in November 2021. At this time, Input Leap is in heavy
development, and not ready for production use. We hope to release our first
post-fork release (v3.0.0) very soon.
But for now, we advise sticking with Barrier v2.4.0/v2.3.4, and avoid building
from Git - unless you're aware that building from Git may result in unexpected
behaviour. Of course, testing is welcome.
At the moment, Input Leap is not compatible with Synergy.
Input Leap needs to be installed on all machines that will share keyboard and
mouse.
What's different?
Whereas Synergy has moved beyond its goals from the 1.x era, Input Leap aims to
maintain that simplicity. Input Leap will let you use your keyboard and mouse
from one computer to control one or more other computers.
Clipboard sharing is supported.
That's it.
Project goals
Hassle-free reliability. We are users, too. Input Leap was created so that we could
solve the issues we had with Synergy and then share these fixes with other
users.
Compatibility. We use more than one operating system and you probably do, too.
Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD... Input Leap should "just work". We will also
have our eye on Wayland when the time comes.
Communication. Everything we do is in the open. Our issue tracker will let you
see if others are having the same problem you're having and will allow you to
add additional information. You will also be able to see when progress is made
and how the issue gets resolved.
Usage
- Install and run Input Leap on each machine that will be sharing.
- On the machine with the keyboard and mouse, make it the server.
- Click the "Configure server" button and drag a new screen onto the grid for
each client machine. - Ensure the "screen name" matches exactly (case-sensitive) for each configured
screen -- the clients' Input Leap windows will tell you their screen names
(just above the server IP). - On the client(s), put in the server machine's IP address (or use Bonjour/auto
configuration when prompted) and "start" them.
You should see Input Leap is running on both server and clients.
You should now be able to move the mouse between all the screens as if they were
the same machine.
Note that if the keyboard's Scroll Lock is active then this will prevent the
mouse from switching screens.
To find information about configuring Input Leap look at the
wiki
Contact & support
Please be aware that the only way to draw our attention to a bug is to create
a new issue in the issue tracker.
Always follow the template, it's there for a reason. Failure to do so will
inevitably result in a delay in the issue being fixed!
Please also see the IRC channels at the top of the README for other methods of
support.
Contributions
At this time we are looking for developers to help fix the issues found in the
issue tracker.
Submit pull requests once you've polished up your patch and we'll review and
possibly merge it.
Most pull requests will need to include a release note.
See docs/newsfragments/README.md for documentation of how to do that.
Distro specific packages
While not a comprehensive list, repology provides a decent list of distro
specific packages.
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Input Leap vs. barrier?
A: Input Leap is a fork of barrier, by barrier's active maintainers. See issue #1414
for more details. Currently, barrier is considered unmaintained.
Q: Does drag and drop work on linux?
A: No (see #855 if you'd like to change that)
Q: What OSes are supported?
Currently, Input Leap is in heavy development, and we hope to make our first
post-fork release very soon. However, we wish to make clear that building from
Git is prone to breaking changes and other bugs/issues. Our advice is to stick
with Barrier v2.4.0/v2.3.4 for the time-being.
Q: How do I load my configuration on startup?
A: Start the binary with the argument
--config <path_to_saved_configuration>
Q: After loading my configuration on the client the field 'Server IP' is still empty!
A: Edit your configuration to include the server's ip address manually with
(...) section: options serverhostname=<AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD>
Q: Are there any other significant limitations with the current version of Input Leap?
A: Currently:
Input Leap currently has limited UTF-8 support; issues have been reported with processing various languages.
- (see #860)
There is interest in future support for the Wayland compositor/display server protocol (official site | Wikipedia article) on Linux.
The complete list of open issues can be found in the 'Issues' tab on GitHub. Help is always appreciated.
