Hi, From: srintuar26 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: gtk2 + japanese; gnome2 and keyboard layouts Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 01:44:15 -0500
> Well I for one have been placated for now by im-ja. Its precisely > what ive been looking for, and extensive googling didnt root it out. I also tested im-ja Debian package with gnome-terminal. I felt it surely will be a convenient tool after more development. There are some points. - Japanese input methods need user preference configuration. For example, some (not small part of) Japanese people want Ctrl+U to be Hiragana conversion, Ctrl+I to be Katakana conversion, Ctrl+O to be Hankaku conversion, Ctrl+P to be Alphabet conversion (reverse romaji/kana conversion), without Kakutei (determination). These key bindings are from popular commercial input engine "ATOK". (It is my first input engine in 15 years ago for about 8 years. After that, I configured all input methods (other than SKK) to ATOK-like key binding.) - Japanese input methods have a key sequence to switch no-conversion <-> kanji conversion. In im-ja, Shift+Space or Henkan (available in Japanese keyboard) key switch no-conversion -> Hiragana -> Katakana -> Canna -> Kanjipad -> no-conversion. It is not suitable for Japanese people who want to input large amount of Japanese text as a mother tongue (or first language). Usually, such omnibus switching (Hiragana -> Katakana -> Kanji -> Kanjipad -> JIS table -> ...) is bind to F10 key. I think it should be configuratable, too. (I don't know why (from what analogy) Henkan key was originally used for this purpose.) - Canna mode seems not to show some important informations such as conversion border (Bunsetsu border) and current converting Bunsetsu. - Canna mode seems not to supply various conversion keys. (For example, conversion border larger/smaller, Hiragana conversion, Katakana conversion, and so on). I may be wrong because I have not tested very well. (How about dictionary handling, JIS character table, and so on?) Does GTK+2 Input Method Framework supply ways for input methods to supply confurators? Are there any Japanese member in Im-ja developers? Japanese people know many tiny but important points for to achieve convenient input method and user interface. Anyway, I imagine most of Japanese people will continue to XIM for a while because (1) changing input method is like changing keyboard from QWERTY to DVORAK, (2) GTK+2 input method is not supported by popular softwares (you can imagine it is confusing to using multiple input methods with different user interfaces, it is like using QWERTY for one software and DVORAK for another), and (3) conversion dictionary which a user tought many words and conversion order of homonyms is a valuable thing and changing input method may mean losing the data. --- Tomohiro KUBOTA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.debian.or.jp/~kubota/ -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
