From kde-devel Wed Jun 27 16:43:33 2012 From: Weng Xuetian Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:43:33 +0000 To: kde-devel Subject: Re: Input method integration Message-Id: X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=134081564218738 On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 12:24 AM, Andriy Rysin wrote: > Hi Weng, > > I'm a maintainer of keyboard module and I'd like to see input methods > integrated in keyboard module. Although I am not sure about replacing > keyboard module altogether - it has a lot of features, I'm open to extending > it especially if it's done in modular fashion. First let me talk about why IMF need to manage layout. For example, if a people need to type German and Chinese together on the same machine, first he may want to change to german, and typing for some time, then he change Chinese Pinyin. And wait, what's the current xkb layout should it be? It should back to English (US) in most case, since german layout have some conflicts with Chinese Pinyin, and key position is different. For current implementation, the IMF itself change the layout setting automatically, and I think it would be better for most user. > > Please note I know pretty much nothing about IM so I would need detailed > information on what is to be done. This is how fcitx manage keyboard layout and input method together http://wstaw.org/m/2012/06/27/plasma-desktoppg1860.png I'd like to see kcm_keyboard layout configuration part to take the same response for this. Xkb option (dead key, blablabla..) and the model, key repeat part need to be touched. > > Could you please prepare a technical reasoning and details of proposed > changes so I and potentially others could evaluate the impact? > About my proposal: For first point, the reason behind making KDE take response start input method, is input method configuration is too hard for normal user. Specific environment variable [1], special auto start command. Distro provides some techinics to start IMF, ubuntu/debian have im-switch and im-config, opensuse use /etc/X11/xim.d, fedora have imsettings, from my experience, they are both broken in some case, but what for other distro, for example, arch, or some other distro, and IMF should be a necessary part of DE. For second point, the idea behind replace the layout configuration, is that if IMF take response of configure layout, the kded keyboard setting is conflict and duplicates with IMF itself, and IMF can track things in more detailed level, from "window" or "application" level, to "input context" level, which cannot be done with kded keyboard. So for kcm keyboard, if a IMF is choosed and available, it should present the IMF configuration, otherwise it can fallback to the old UI. [1] http://fcitx-im.org/wiki/Input_method_related_environment_variables >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<