UIM & Japanese Input

K. Kawagishi · 2006-05-17 17:45:16

Notes about UIM (universal input method)
Smarter Japanese input

Using UIM, I can input Japanese for most applications.

Back ground:
I need to write Japanese time to time.
I have a network system:
1. a server installed RH: I can use this machine for Japanese with kterm, Canna, and Kinput2 combination.
2. MS Windows box: I seldom use this, because I had bad virus infection years ago.
3. a workstation with Archlinux: I tried gedit with SCIM, SCIM-anthy and Anthy. I liked this method because it works smarter.
However, I could not use for other applications.

I waited until I have more time to investigate. Since last February, I started to comb through Japanese sites one by one.
I reached a conclusion that UIM and XWNMO may be good and I made a package to try.
Soon after I knew this UIM was released as an extra of Archilinux.

1. Now, I can use Japanese input method for applications written with GTK2,
2. applications with others (GTK1, Qt),
3. I can not use consoles yet.

I have tried Japanese input on gedit, gimp, OOo, Kword, Firefox, Thunderbird. It works very well.

It is important to install all applications, prior to UIM installation, since UIM is a tool of bridging libraries.

Example of installation sequence.
1.SCIM, SCIM-anthy, Anthy
2.Other all applications wanted to use: OO, Koffice, Mozilla (fox, thunder bird)
3.UIM

UIM configuration for Archlinux.

1.Check if the following is exist.

/etc/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules

2.add the following in home env. File (~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc or ~/.gnomerc)

export GTK_IM_MODULE = uim
export QT_IM_MODULE = uim
uim-xim &
export XMODIFIERS = @im = uim
uim-toolbar-gtk &

3.Set up uim-pref

at command line type

$ uim-pref-gtk

and follow instructions.

Japanese input basic
My key binging ( default):

ctl-j: start j-input (toggle -- watch your tool bar a or Japanese letter a )
ctl-i: make selection less
ctl-o: make selection more
ctl-h: restart selection

ctl-i, ctl-o and ctl-h all seems to work in other input methods and convenient to use.
Anthy is keeping track your input(refer to your file .anthy/last-record2-default).
Therefore, your frequent use words will be appeared at a front in candidate list.

References:
http://mover.cool.ne.jp/doc/uim-user/uim-user.html
http://uim.freedesktop.org/wiki/WhatsUIM
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValle … anese.html (Japanese site)

scottro · 2006-05-17 19:18:54

Interesting. I'd like to post a link to this on my Japanese in Linux page at http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/jpninpt.html

I've found scim-anthy to work well for me with Arch. Basically I only input in an xterm (for email) and OpenOffice.

Thanks for this post

Junzo · 2006-06-02 01:11:11

I'm using Gimmick with Openbox.
I also was trying to find a combination for Japanese input with Firefox and Openoffice.
I installed scim and anthy.
Openoffice 2.0.2-2
Firefox 1.5.0.3-1
scim 1.4.4.2

I could enter Japanese with Firefox. I, however, could not enter the same language with Openoffice.
I switched to uim and anthy.
Now it works perfectly.
According to other Web pages related with SCIM, it perhaps has a problem with Openoffice.

I recommend to use a combination of uim and anthy instead of scim for time beeing.

codemac · 2006-06-02 12:24:59

I think someone needs to wikify this :-D

http://wiki.archlinux.org

I'm sure it would be very helpful if there was a decent knowledge base on this.

K. Kawagishi · 2006-06-11 13:57:16

I have been seeking better way of Japanese conversion for long time – since the time of "Linux-Nihongo" by Craig Oda , or through the time of Mandrake's pioneering efforts toward Multilingual, etc.
Now, I see so many attempts of input methods on Internet.
"Japanese Input Method" is in chaos – that's what I thought.
Therefore, I went through several sites and reached a conclusion that XWNMO and UIM are better ways.
XWNMO, which is base on Wnn, must be good but the latest one is not in public domain.
(there is wnn-xwnmo_4.2.tgz available – in future when I have more time I would like to try)
UIM is a method bridging libraries and used for phone, Linux Zaurus, Mac OS X.
UIM works very well for me. That's a reason why I posted.
In my mind, my initial post is concise but includes the most important information.
When I have more time, I would like to investigate dictionary connection so that more vocabulary is available as candidate to it.

scottro · 2006-06-11 14:11:44

Yes, I sometimes look at Mr. Oda's howto and realize how far Japanese input has come in many years. My original page on Japanese input was based on RH 6 or 7.x and concentrated on kinput and canna.

However, I've tended to settle on scim when it's available--I didn't have the trouble mentioned with OpenOffice.

For console work, I use mlterm or rxvt-unicode for UTF-8 and mrxvt for EUC. (The mrxvt maintainer kindly added a patch that I provided that gives EUC support.)

For those who like aterm, I received an email yesterday from a gentleman who has added a patch to aterm 1.x for EUC support. It's availabe in aterm's cvs and one has to configure with --enable-kanji --enable-xim.

For the console itself, (as opposed to an xterm window) there is kon--I've used it in Gentoo and FreeBSD, but these days, I simply start X if I need Japanese--actually, I don't think I ever got kon to input Japanese, only read it.

I've added a link to this thread to my page which is one of the pages that is apparently often used by people trying to input Japanese in various Unix and Unix-like systems.

I thank you for your efforts with this. As you've said input is in a bit of chaos, as there are various and sundry methods that work with some distros, not others, some applications, not others, etc.

Another issue is encoding, MS and Mac still favor Shift JIS, some favorite Unix apps, such as aterm and mrxvt, don't yet support UTF-8 and EUC is the only method available--also, of course, ISO-2022, which is preferred in other places--I think the Freenode irc #nihongo channel asks that you only use ISO-2022.

wintercarver · 2008-03-04 04:46:51

K. Kawagishi wrote:

It is important to install all applications, prior to UIM installation, since UIM is a tool of bridging libraries.

So, as a newb, what do I do if I've installed all my software and then later decide to start Japanese input? Do I have to reinstall all my other applications? Is there a recommended command with pacman for this procedure? Thank you.

-w

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-17 17:45:16

UIM & Japanese Input

#2 2006-05-17 19:18:54

Re: UIM & Japanese Input

#3 2006-06-02 01:11:11

Re: UIM & Japanese Input

#4 2006-06-02 12:24:59

Re: UIM & Japanese Input

#5 2006-06-11 13:57:16

Re: UIM & Japanese Input

#6 2006-06-11 14:11:44

Re: UIM & Japanese Input

#7 2008-03-04 04:46:51

Re: UIM & Japanese Input

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