[SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

LighthouseKeeper · 2008-04-19 20:43:17

Hi, I've tried to search for my problem, but nothing has showed up, so if this has already been answered, please forgive me.

Anyway, I use KDE as my primary desktop environment with SKIM as my unicode input method. After installing SKIM and Japanese fonts back when I first set Arch up, I have never had any issues with inputting unicode or displaying it in any program, whether that be irssi running through Konsole, or the song titles in Amarok. That all changed this afternoon, somehow...

The only major changes I can remember making to my system today are the following:
1.) I installed Awesome Window Manager to check it out
2.) I installed a pkgbuild of urxvt
3.) I made an .Xdefaults file and added these lines to customize my urxvt

After messing around with these things, I decided that Awesome wasn't a suitable WM for me, went back into KDE, and removed the package. I noticed a few strange issues after that though:

1. Foreign characters refuse to display properly in any terminal emulator.

2. Foreign characters come up as jumble in Konqueror now as well, when they never did before:

3. SKIM refuses to let me input Japanese characters with Anthy in any KDE app. The option for Japanese just isn't there, even though I have it installed:

4. Foreign characters display perfectly as tags for songs in Amarok, but if the music file itself has foreign characters in it, the title is garbled and the track is unplayable:

5. SKIM works absolutely fine in non-KDE apps like Firefox:

As seen in the last example, my Japanese fonts are all installed, and SKIM is working as it should in any non-KDE app, suggesting that there are no problems on that end. The issue seems to be with something in KDE, but I have no idea where to begin fixing it. Furthermore, I have no idea what could have caused this issue in the first place. I don't see how installing a window manager or terminal emulator package could have screwed up my fonts, and the .Xdefaults file I wrote just contained config information for urxvt. Nothing else. I even ended up deleting that, but it did not fix my problem.

If you could be of any help, I'd really appreciate it. I have a lot of files with foreign characters in them, and being able to read them is essential.

Last edited by LighthouseKeeper (2008-04-20 00:57:36)

LighthouseKeeper · 2008-04-19 21:24:13

Also, I think that this may be related to the problem that I am currently experiencing:

KDE apps are wonky outside of KDE. By that, I mean that programs like Konsole, Konqueror, and Amarok simply will not run in any other window manager. Entering the commands for these programs in another window manager brings up the typical "command not found" error message, when the program is clearly installed. This of course has never been the case in the past.

I suspect that there is some form of general disconnection between KDE and everything else, if that makes sense. I don't know how to describe it otherwise. If you've experienced anything like this, or have some idea what is going on, please please help me.

damjan · 2008-04-19 21:52:29

This looks to me like a locale problem.

LighthouseKeeper · 2008-04-19 21:58:39

I was just looking into locales, actually.

My current locale is:

LANG=en_US.utf8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.utf8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.utf8"
LC_TIME="en_US.utf8"
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_MONETARY="en_US.utf8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.utf8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.utf8"
LC_NAME="en_US.utf8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.utf8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.utf8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.utf8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.utf8"
LC_ALL=

and locale -a brings up:

C
POSIX
en_US.utf8

Is there anything here that could be causing this issue?
I'm curious how my locale got messed with in the first place if this is indeed the problem...

and here is my export:

declare -x COLORTERM=""
declare -x DESKTOP_SESSION="kde"
declare -x DISPLAY=":0.0"
declare -x DM_CONTROL="/var/run/xdmctl"
declare -x GS_LIB="/home/rael/.fonts"
declare -x GTK2_RC_FILES="/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:/home/rael/.gtkrc-2.0:/home/rael/.kde/share/config/gtkrc-2.0"
declare -x GTK_IM_MODULE="scim"
declare -x GTK_RC_FILES="/etc/gtk/gtkrc:/home/rael/.gtkrc:/home/rael/.kde/share/config/gtkrc"
declare -x HOME="/home/rael"
declare -x KDE_FULL_SESSION="true"
declare -x KDE_MULTIHEAD="false"
declare -x KDE_SESSION_UID="1000"
declare -x KONSOLE_DCOP="DCOPRef(konsole-19951,konsole)"
declare -x KONSOLE_DCOP_SESSION="DCOPRef(konsole-19951,session-1)"
declare -x LOGNAME="rael"
declare -x OLDPWD
declare -x PATH="/opt/kde/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/games"
declare -x PWD="/home/rael"
declare -x QT_IM_MODULE="scim"
declare -x SESSION_MANAGER="local/broadway:/tmp/.ICE-unix/19566"
declare -x SHELL="/bin/bash"
declare -x SHLVL="2"
declare -x SSH_AGENT_PID="19539"
declare -x SSH_AUTH_SOCK="/tmp/ssh-MtdHR19538/agent.19538"
declare -x TERM="xterm"
declare -x USER="rael"
declare -x WINDOWID="41943050"
declare -x XCURSOR_THEME="default"
declare -x XDM_MANAGED="/var/run/xdmctl/xdmctl-:0,maysd,mayfn,sched,rsvd,method=classic"
declare -x XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"

Last edited by LighthouseKeeper (2008-04-19 22:31:16)

Leigh · 2008-04-19 23:19:14

I have a similar issue when trying to run kde apps in fluxbox. I don't know what caused it and I haven't resolved it yet. Other than that, I input Chinese often, but I don't use skim. I've tried it in the past and just don't like it. I prefer the normal scim and it has worked great with no problems inputing Chinese in gtk and qt apps.

Your locale -a isn't showing any Japanese locales. You might want to uncomment ja_JP.UTF-8 in your /etc/locale.gen file, and run locale-gen to make it active.

If it helps, here are my locale settings. I use .bashrc for this...

export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_CTYPE="zh_CN.UTF-8"
export QT_XFT=true
export GDK_USE_XFT=1
export XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"
export GTK_IM_MODULE="scim"
export QT_IM_MODULE="xim"
export XIM_PROGRAM="scim -d"

All other LC settings like LC_MESSAGES=, LC_TIME=, etc.. will default to the export LANG= setting, so I don't bother specifing them unless I want to change one to specify Chinese instead of English.

edit...
I don't know about other wms, but in fluxbox I just needed to specify the actual path to the kde app to run it. By defualt, It's not looking in /opt.

Last edited by Leigh (2008-04-19 23:50:46)

LighthouseKeeper · 2008-04-19 23:58:01

Thank you, that solved at least part of my problem. I don't know how, but somehow, my locale was messed with, which caused everything to become garbled. Now that I have regenerated my locale, Japanese characters show up just fine in Konqueror and Konsole. However, it seems like the filenames were permanently garbled, meaning that I'll have to change them back manually. On top of that, SKIM still doesn't work in QT apps.

But, I'm glad that my main issue has been solved, thanks! I'm sure I'll figure the rest out eventually...

Leigh · 2008-04-20 00:15:39

Your welcome. I know I struggled for a while and had to play with font substitution, or use a font that would render both Chinese and English characters. It took some tweaking to use my prefered English font and prefered Chinese font in gtk and qt apps, so English and Chinese would render correctly together. I suspect the garbled file names is just a font issue. Take a look at qtconfig. Under fonts you can list subsitutions for your prefered English fonts. So if your prefered font doesn't render Japanese, it will fall back on what ever font you listed. works great for qt apps.

LighthouseKeeper · 2008-04-20 00:57:00

Alright. All the previously jumbled text is fixed now, and after messing around with qtconfig, I've got full skim functionality back.
While I am still not sure what caused this mess in the first place, I am glad that everything is back to normal now.
Thanks again for all the help.

Last edited by LighthouseKeeper (2008-04-20 00:57:14)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-19 20:43:17

[SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#2 2008-04-19 21:24:13

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#3 2008-04-19 21:52:29

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#4 2008-04-19 21:58:39

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#5 2008-04-19 23:19:14

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#6 2008-04-19 23:58:01

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#7 2008-04-20 00:15:39

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

#8 2008-04-20 00:57:00

Re: [SOLVED] Major weird issues with KDE/Qt apps and unicode

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