I don't really have the time to go through all
of the "supporting XIM" thread in detail, but I
wanted to clarify what the GTK+ Input Method
Module system is supposed to be for.
The GTK+ input module system was never meant to
be a universal solution for writing input methods --
it's explicitely tied to GTK+ and Pango in various
ways.
Rather it was meant to be a way of connecting GTK+
flexibly to different types of input modules.
My expectation was that there would just be a
couple of modules:
Default (compose sequences - cross platform,
lighter than XIM, locale independent)
XIM
IIIMF
Windows
And that would be about it.
I wrote a couple of toy input method modules for
experimentation with the system like the
"Transliterated Cyrillic" module).
It's turned out that writing input method
modules has been much more popular than I would
have expected; my guess is that this is largely
because it's a whole lot easier to write a GTK+
input method module than to do something with
XIM.
And also because we don't have any good facilities
for doing locale-independent input methods and
switching input methods on the fly. IIIMF
promised these capabilities, but doesn't really
seem to be a solution yet.
But I think GTK+ input method modules are basically
a distraction ... we need a way of doing input
methods that can work with all applications
regardless of toolkit, and that we can integrate
tightly into different desktops.
Regards,
Owen
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