Re: Typing on GuixSD in languages other than English

["Luis Felipe López Acevedo" <felipe.lopez@openmailbox.org>]

On 2016-04-04 00:37, Chris Marusich wrote:
> Luis Felipe López Acevedo <felipe.lopez@openmailbox.org> writes:
> 
>>> Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:
>>> 
>>> The attached patches add anthy and ibus-anthy.  They build OK.
>>> However,
>>> Japanese input is not yet working for me.  In fact, ibus itself does
>>> not
>>> seem to be working at all.
>>> 
>>> How can I verify that ibus is working on its own?  I've tried
>>> installing
>>> ibus by itself into my profile.  When I do this, I can run 
>>> ibus-setup,
>>> and I see a "Japanese" language input option.  This is true even when
>>> anthy and ibus-anthy are not installed, which surprised me. I had
>>> expected to find no Japanese language input options at all in
>>> ibus-setup
>>> when anthy and ibus-anthy are not installed.
>>> 
>>> In GNOME, there is no ibus menu visible anywhere on my screen, so it 
>>> is
>>> unclear whether ibus is actually working.  When I open Gedit and 
>>> press
>>> <Super>+Space, my input method does not seem to change.  According to
>>> ibus-setup, this hotkey should change my input method.  However, it
>>> seems like ibus is just not working at all.
>> 
>> FWIW, this is what I do on Debian 8 (with GNOME SHELL):
>> 
>> - Install ibus, ibus-anthy (or ibus-mozc).
>> - Restart the system.
>> - Go to *System settings → Region & Language*.
>> - Add *Japanese (Anthy)* in Input method.
> 
> "Japanese (Anthy)" does not show up as an input method.  There are a
> variety of entries (which are present regardless of whether ibus, 
> anthy,
> or ibus-anthy are installed), and none of them mention "Anthy".

Hmm, then it seems there is something missing. I just follow the steps 
in a different Debian machine and this is what you should see:

https://multimedialib.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/gnome-shell-language-region-input-source-1.png
https://multimedialib.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/gnome-shell-language-region-input-source-2.png


>> After this, you should see the language icon in the top-right corner
>> of the desktop. For example, if your current keyboard layout is
>> English, you'll see the *en* language code with a little triangle to
>> the right. Click there or use Super+Space to alternate between
>> languages.
> 
> When I select one of the Japanese language input methods via the above
> method (e.g., the one that's just called "Japanese"), I do in fact see 
> a
> little icon in the upper right that I can toggle between "en" and "ja"
> using <Super>+Space.  However, this just seems to shuffle around the
> keymap for my keyboard.  It does not actually let me input any kana or
> convert anything into kanji.


Yeah, something is not working well then. When you follow the steps 
above, and use Super+Space, the language indicator should eventually 
change to an A in hiragana. Then you should just be able to start 
writing Japanese as in this screenshot:

https://multimedialib.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/gnome-shell-japanese-anthy.png


>> And thank you very mucho for the patches, I'm going to need Anthy when
>> I install GuixSD :)
> 
> I hope we can get it working!  Thank you for your assistance.

Another thing to have into account when writing with non-roman alphabets 
using ibus is that you need to install ibus modules/bridges for the 
different GUI toolkits used by the applications you utilize. So you need 
ibus-gtk, ibus-qt, etc.


-- 
Luis Felipe López Acevedo