Arch Linux

PUE

Member

From: Earth/Europe/Austria

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 55

Compose key not working in GTK applications [Resolved]

I have been running Sway for many years and I guess at some point compose keys stopped working in GTK apps.
This is what I have in my Sway config to do the trick:

input * xkb_options compose:caps

I tried to find an answer but failed.
At best I found a workaround:

GDK_BACKEND=x11

This suggests to me, that it is some problem with the Wayland backend of GTK.
Does anyone know of a proper solution?

Last edited by PUE (2026-07-12 08:00:29)

PUE

Member

From: Earth/Europe/Austria

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 55

Re: Compose key not working in GTK applications [Resolved]

So I found a solution and some explanation here: https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/discussions/8899
What works for me is:

GTK_IM_MODULE="simple"

Arch seems to have solved this for some users, but this fix does not apply to me: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … k_items/12

The root cause seems to be the clusterfucks that are Wayland and GTK (GNOME), who care only for GNOME users since a decade or so. GTK_IM_MODULE is essentially undocumented. No documentation what the default or possible values are, but they reference some menu where the user can select the input method… typical GNOME.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,840

Re: Compose key not working in GTK applications [Resolved]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Input_ … figuration
https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/ibus/ is a hard dependency for gnome, but you might not have/want that?

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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PUE

Member

From: Earth/Europe/Austria

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 55

Re: Compose key not working in GTK applications [Resolved]

Thanks for the reminder, I marked it resolved.

My problem is that, apparently since GTK 4.19, it is required to configure an Input Method Editor.
Before that, GTK seems to have had a fallback to its own "simple" IME.
Hence with that change they broke my setup, my compose key no longer worked in GTK applications.

The referenced Arch bug was resolved by adding ibus as dependency to gnome-shell, which is no use to anyone not using gnome-shell but still wanting to use GTK applications.
GTK is a widget toolkit, cross-platform even, yet the GNOME devs treat it as if it was just their internal widget library.