MacOS Input Method Hinter

Hint the current input method where and when you need it.

Logo

Problem Statement

MacOS is a great OS for everyday life. Unfortunately, it’s notorious for screwing up per document/window keyboard layouts. In MacOS 13 (Ventura) the bright and colorful flags indicators were changed to unremarkable grayish symbols which are hard to spot in the system menu. Oftentimes, you only find out the language you use once you start typing.

What MacOS Input Method Hinter does is augmenting the system language indicator with one that appears next to the mouse cursor at times when the keyboard layout is switched or when the you are activating a text input.

Pressing Fn+Ctrl will flash the current input language at any time.

DISCLAIMER: I tried various methods of detecting the text cursor locations but it seems like none of the methods work reliably in 2023. If you know how to detect the text cursor screen location, please let me know.

Screencasts

Light Theme

Dark Theme

Installing

Either method requires enabling the app in the System Settings Accessibility list.

From Release

  1. Download from Releases
  2. Unzip and drag to /Applications.

Building from Source

  1. Check out the source
$ git clone https://github.com/ershov/InputMethodHinter.git
  1. Build

$ cd InputMethodHinter
$ make
  1. Copy executables InputMethodHinter-app and InputMethodHinter-console to your $PATH.
  2. open . and copy the the app to /Applications

NOTE that in order to be able to use the app normally you’ll need to self-sign it.

GitHub

View Github