[tlug] Questions about Japanese input

[Doug Lerner <doug@example.com>]

I am basically a Mac OS X user, but am thinking of switching to Linux for a
variety of reasons, such as having more hardware choice and some problems I
am having with Apple. For example, see:

http://injapan.net/.1c3eecb8

Anyway, I can't seem to completely grasp what is needed to deal with
Japanese input in apps under Linux. After reading the various howtos and
docs available, and installing this, that and the other, I believe I have
canna and kinput2 running.

For example, if I startup kinput2 with the command

    kinput2 -canna -xim&

and then start kterm with

    kterm&

I can use SHIFT-SPACE to enter Japanese inside KTERM. I've typed in a "vi"
file this way.

But what I can't figure out are things like (to begin with):


(1) How to always have kinput2 running, without typing in the above
commands?

(2) It seems you always have to switch out of kinput2 with SHIFT-SPACE to
enter a line return and go to the next line, and then switch back again to
keep on typing. Is that true?

(3) I can't get the same SHIFT-SPACE to work in Evolution or Mozilla. Is
there some general technique?

Thanks for any advice.

Doug Lerner, Tokyo