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When I edit my ~/.XCompose file, I need to reboot Ubuntu 16.04 for the changes to take effect. Is there a way to tell Ubuntu to reload the definitions in the file without doing a full reboot?

Alexis Wilke
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ARX
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    Are you sure you need a reboot? Just close the application in which you intend using the Compose key and restart the application. Any modification to `~/.XCompose` should be effective immediately. – DK Bose Dec 11 '18 at 15:51
  • For some reason, restarting the application doesn't work for me. In my system, changes are only recognized in all applications after a reboot. – ARX Dec 11 '18 at 16:35

2 Answers2

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Restart the input method program you are running. For a brute force approach, if your OS comes with pidof, you can use the following command:

pidof <INPUTMETHOD> | xargs kill -9; <INPUTMETHOD>

(Just replace with the actual command for your input method program.)

Your input method may include a command to restart it. In my case, it's fcitx, which offers this command:

fcitx -r

All changes are instantly activated. However, some applications may need to be restarted.

As ARX mentions in comments, ibus has its own command to restart as well:

ibus restart
Alexis Wilke
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    This works for ibus. You can also use "ibus restart" as a simpler alternative. Thanks! – ARX Jul 19 '20 at 23:43
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I'm on ubuntu 22.10, and my problem is that: I'm including files from ~/.XCompose, and if the modifications are inside the included files but not directly to ~/.XCompose, then apps won't pick up the updates. So I have to do a dummy editing directly inside ~/.XCompose, and restart apps.

To sum up:

  1. Check that your updates is directly inside ~/.XCompose (not one of your included files). Or you need to do a dummy editing like me (retouching ~/.XCompose might also work).
  2. Restart application.

If above not work, you might as well try these:

  • restart input engine.
  • restart X.
  • relogin.
unifreak
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